Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump/Archive AU

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Village pump archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump. Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU

BBC World Service: Interviewee required

BBC's Go Digital radio programme have contacted me about doing an interview for them. They would also like to speak to someone outside of Europe or the US. The interview will be focusing on the fact Wikipedia has just reached one million articles, and will have a global slant since the World Service program goes out worldwide. The interview could be by phone, or, preferably, in a studio if someone who lives near a BBC studio could be found. They are particularly looking for someone who is able to talk about the use of Wikipedia in their country, not only the editing of it.

The exact date this will happen is not known, but they are phoning me tomorrow (24 September) hoping for a contact for the other part of the report.

If anyone would be interested in being interviewed for this, please contact me as soon as possible. Thanks. Angela. 17:56, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Image versions

I have recently created a map Image:Melbourne map.png and then done some requested additions. Eventually there were five versions uploaded. Whenever I accessed it, an older version was displayed. I tried clearing my internet cache but I think the problem is in Wikipedia. Help! What is happening here? In the article I changed the reference from 250px to 251px and we got the correnct map but I am still getting the wrong map when I go to the page.--CloudSurfer 19:15, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It might be the Wikipedia cache. The easiest way to purge it is to visit the page history and change action=history to action=purge and hit 'go' (or your browser's equivalent). I have a script on my user page that adds a 'purge cache' button to the toolbar along with history, move, watch etc. —Rory ☺ 20:31, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
I deleted the two redundant revisions of the map. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:26, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for that. Please feel free to delete all but the latest version with my username. Rory, sadly the purge didn't fix the problem. The correct version is displayed on the Melbourne page and I got that by changing the display pixels from 250 to 251. Prior to that it was accessing some stored version at 250 pixels. Whether it was stored on my computer or Wikipedia's I don't know. The problem remains with the Image:Melbourne map.png page in that I keep seeing the original version on my computer. If you see the same version as is displayed on the Melbourne page then I guess it is my computer where the problem is. Whichever way, this is a problem that needs to be fixed as it means that people are not necessarily getting the latest version of the graphic. --CloudSurfer 01:44, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Whoops! After saving the above I then pressed the refresh button on my browser and - bingo - I now have the correct version displaying. Thanks Rory!! --CloudSurfer 01:49, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
On internet explorer, did you try reload while pressing the CTRL key? This often helps -- Chris 73 Talk 03:13, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for all your help. As stated, the problem is resolved by purging and refreshing. --CloudSurfer 03:35, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Best format for succession tables

Ahh, the things one obsesses himself with. Anyway, here's a few things I want community approval on:

  1. In the successor tables (best example: Bill Clinton), should it say "Succeeded by" or "Followed by"?
    • How about Next and Previous? --Phil | Talk 08:19, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
  2. Looking at Slick Willy's article again, should the multi-term offices be split into a single line for each office, or be combined like they are in Clinton's page? It can seem to give some offices that someone held multiple times more weight than a more major office (as easily seen in Clinton's case).
  3. Should such things be in chronological order, or in order of office importance? Both have advantages... with more than two or so offices, I'd say stick with chronological, but then you run into some being chrono and some being importance (Like, again, Clinton's - it's in order of importance.) And if you stick with importance, you run into the problem of figuring out just which offices are more important than others.

I'd like some opinions on this before I proceed further with these. Thanks! --Golbez 01:05, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I suggest using Template:Sequence for succession tables. Some lists like the Roman Emperors have their own versions. It's a shame the Wikipedia does not support <link> tags... <link rel="next">/<link rel="prev"> would be great here! {Ανάριον} 08:33, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Except that has no mechanism for multi-office people. It will end up just crowding the bottom of pages of people who had multiple offices (or, just ignore it altogether for those). I'd have appreciated more discussion on this topic before people started switching the presidents to it. I'll look at the template code and see if I can play with it. Also, while useful, question #3 above remains unanswered. I don't understand how link would work, either. :) --Golbez 18:19, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

There has been a growing collection of articles containing common color associations, related to color psychology. Input concerning the proper course of these articles is welcomed at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of terms associated with the color.... --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 00:21, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Possible?

Is it possible to see all User talk: pages that haven't been edited for over 6 months? Specifically anon IP's? I want to do a little janitorial work there... — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:56, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you have the cur table you could use a query like SELECT cur_title FROM cur WHERE cur_namespace = 3 AND cur_timestamp < 20040323000000 . You could also add cur_title LIKE '%.%.%.%' to filter out most non-IPs. Goplat 01:14, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks...but I bet SQL queries are currently blocked on the live database (and I'm sure as heck not downloading 1.6 GB of sheer database power). — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:17, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Or at least, it doesn't work for me (see This page at the bottom). — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 03:22, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The live db is blocked to SQL analysis at present, or was the last time I looked. This actually makes trawling for vandalism quite difficult; time was when you could pick up trends of vandalism from studying the db. NOw there is no smart method rather than constant vigilance :( Sjc 04:17, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Download a dump and perform local SQL queries on it. It's not up-to-date, but you don't really think all vandalism from the last dump has already been erased, do you? Derrick Coetzee 06:00, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Special:Unusedimages

I've just finished scanning through titles and descriptions of almost 19,000 unused images at Wikipedia, working forward from 20 July 2002 to date, and I found dozens and dozens of fine to excellent images without obvious copyright issues, which I was able to identify, with the aid of some Googling (set at "Images" sometimes), and work into entries. Other Wikipedians with other interests and expertise would find more unused images suited to other entries. But how often is this huge file refreshed? Wetman 04:39, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

At the last server crash the link table to images was lost, thus all images became "unused". All articles edited since then will get the images "used" again. And just last weekend a bug with images in templates was fixed, earlier images only used via a template parameter were "unused" as well. So probably a lot of those images are used somewhere already, it's only difficult to find as google seem to have left out indexing of many articles. andy 11:44, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm wondering how worried we have to be about server crashes wiping more than just a link table? -- Solitude 13:46, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
It wasn't a server crash that caused all images to be unused, it was the upgrade to 1.3.

Hmm. I did notice that some images, when I went to the most obvious entry, were in fact being used, but I attributed this to the section not having been recently refreshed. Many images did prove to be unused, though. Often an image can be reused effectively in an entry that is secondary to its original purpose. See Romanticism for a nice example. Wetman 19:57, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I also thought it was the 1.3 update, but Tim Starling corrected me last time I told it that way :-) But it's a moot point, we just need to remember that currently the Unused Image list has lots of false positives. But yes, there are probably many images not used now, maybe superceeded by a new image, maybe removed accidentally, maybe uploaded but failed to include it into an article. Or it's thumbnails not used anymore since MediaWiki can resize images by itself now. If you want to weed the list you'll have a lot of work to do - but someone must do it someday anyway. BTW: If you find good pictures which are clearly OK by copyright, but don't have any article in which they can be included, you can also upload them to Commons]. andy 08:07, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Project Gutenberg Template

Would it make sense to provide a template for Project Gutenberg books, so as to provide a common means of linking in the public domain digital literature from that source? (So as to make it easy to identify, as well as globally modify the links as needed.) Or perhaps a meta-template for digital literature sources that includes Project Gutenberg? Thanks. RJH

Do you need a template or just a special word like is done with ISBN's? Rmhermen 23:02, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
You want a template for making a single external link? Why? Seems a bit unnecessary, and wouldn't work very well anyway because you'd have to go to their site to figure out what to link to in the first place. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:31, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Maybe you mean something like Template:imdb name and Template:imdb title which provide a method of standardising the format of links to the IMDb. If links to PG can be formulated in a dependable way, this woud likely be a good idea. --Phil | Talk 10:48, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)
Yes something like that would be good for starters. I'm not sure if you can convert the book #ID into a URL, as is used in Gutenberg. But if Gutenberg revised their URL scheme in the future, I think it would make a mass transition easier. That way we can reliably include a Gutenberg link on all pages for the appropriate books. Thanks! — RJH 19:51, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Moving FDMA to Frequency division multiple access

I noticed that Frequency division multiple access redirects to Frequency-division multiplexing; I do not think they are the same thing. As mentioned in the article anyway (And from my understanding), I believe that Frequency division multiple access is an example of Frequency-division multiplexing. The real definition of Frequency division multiple access is available at FDMA.

I know I could redirect Frequency division multiple access to FDMA, but judging by CDMA and TDMA (The other technologies in the same class as FDMA), the full title is the original name of the article, and the abberviation is a redirect; so for the sake of consistency, I believe FDMA should be moved to Frequency division multiple access, and it should redirect to it.

Can someone with the power to do so change that? Thanks! --Khalid 21:49, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Done. Mostly for the sake of consistency. zoney ♣ talk 00:04, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Point system idea

Seeing the number of proposals begin thrown around to combat vandalism and such, I'll just throw in something I wrote a couple of days ago concerning contributors giving ratings to other users. See User:Alerante/Point system. Discussion should go to the talk page. [ alerante | “” 18:07, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) ]

Category creation

In keeping with the category creation for other notable families, I inserted "Category:The Delanos". However, I have no idea how to create the file. Could someone who knows what to do, create this. Thanks. JillandJack 17:32, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The category is just as much there as any other red link. It's only red because you haven't added any text to it, or included it in any other categories. --Golbez 17:39, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Proper book list?

At baseball, there is a list of books at the end. I want to move this list to its own page. What page should I use? Baseball bibliography? Baseball books? List of baseball books? Something else? --Locarno 14:12, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you are talking about the "references" section, better leave it where it is. Wikipedia:Cite_your_sources suggests that you give details about sources of information, and the references section is there for that purpose. Kosebamse 15:22, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Categorization

Is there any reason against making and using a template like the one created at Template:Cat? It's convenient for me anyway, but I don't know if there will be any unforeseen problems. - [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 09:04, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

One problem (Bug 31) is that you cannot provide sorting that way. I am not sure if the other problem still exists as several template bugs were fixed last weekend - but earlier any change on the category in the template only led to update the article in the category after the article was editing again next time. If it's just to save typing egory, I don't think the obfuscation is worth the saving of 4 keyboard hits (5 letters less, but you have to type one | for the template). Yet categories are used in templates, especially the navigational ones, thus all articles having the navigational box are member of the category. andy 09:23, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the fast reply, won't be using it based on those reasons. - [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 09:42, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Licensing

Is there a way to find out which licenses an image on the internet has been released under? I would also like to know if using an image that has been licensed to me by permission inhibits the rights of others to use the article it is linked to as a free document? Thanks. Justin Foote 23:02, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Though question. About licensed to you: This depends on the exact type of license. Often this is licensed only for a certain use, i.e. only your personal website. Ask the original owner again. About pictures on the internet: This is usually tough to find out. Most pages have a copyright notice somewhere. However, an absence does not mean no copyright. You basically have to search the page for a statement. If there is none, then assume it is copyrighted. Government sites often say Information presented on this website, unless otherwise indicated , is considered in the public domain. It may be distributed or copied as is permitted by the law. or similar in their disclaimer/privacy statement, then you can use it unless there is a special notice. Old 2D images or scans/photos thereof may have expired copyrights. See also Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial, Category:Wikipedia:Copyright -- Chris 73 Talk 06:11, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

The "new, improved" Votes for deletion page

See also: Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion#New process for easier listing and editing.

What the hell is going on on the VfD page? Without discussion, SOMEBODY has changed the page to change the way it's to be edited, and now I can't add new entries. Is this a not-so-subtle way of sabotaging VfD? RickK 22:13, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

No. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 22:29, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
While I certainly don't think it's sabotage, if you make a major change to how an important project page works, you should (a) tell people and (b) document it. —Morven 22:44, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
Evidently someone's removing the "add to this discussion" links? I can't tell who it is from the history, but whoever you are, it's disrupting things, so a revert of your VfD mods would be appreciated. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Maintenance is a better proposal for managing the size of VfD. --Ardonik.talk()* 22:49, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
Okay, now I understand the system (basically, the "add to this discussion" links are being replaced with section edit links), but I don't see what makes it better than the old way of doing things. The same number of templates are still being expanded, and the change isn't going to reduce the size of the VfD page down noticeably.
I guess I'm not opposed to it, but I don't understand what benefits we're supposed to reap by following it. --Ardonik.talk()* 22:55, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
Well, from my understanding, the new procedure places a link to the article on the subpage automatically, so that's one benefit. - RedWordSmith 23:28, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Section edit links now work on sections in transcluded pages ({{these things}}). This allows us to just use the regular section editing feature (the [edit] links attached to each section header) in order to edit the individual VfD subsections -- the [edit] link automatically "knows" that it has to load the content from the transcluded page.

This has various benefits:

  • the VfD page no longer has to use a nonstandard format to achieve the desired effect
  • adding pages is easier - no need to create the "Add to this discussion" link on your own
  • the [edit] link goes directly to the edit view for the desired subpage
  • the actual VfD wikisource gets a lot cleaner and easier to refactor
  • you can enable right-click editing in your preference (then you just have to right-click a section title to edit that section)
  • you get auto-summaries (which is useful here, because the auto-summary will include a link to the page that is supposed to be deleted, so that you can directly jump to it from RecentChanges)
  • you can edit individual subsections.

Not all the old-style entries have been switched to the new format yet, so please help in doing that.--Eloquence*

I should add:

  • no more need for the "you are about to edit the main VfD page" comment.

— Gwalla | Talk 04:00, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Lol, Rick made almost exactly the same {comment,paranoid rant about sabotage} the last time VfD structure was improved. Pcb21| Pete 08:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with being paranoid. Are you accusing me of being paranoid?! Curse you and the rest of your co-conspirators!
Seriously, RickK is just making sure that VfD is, in fact, being improved rather than vandalized. He's looking out to make sure the whole thing runs as smoothly as possible, so please avoid calling anyone's concerns a "paranoid rant". I'm sure you meant no offense, but remember WikiLove, and all that. :-) • Benc • 21:34, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Since the change, my browser (Safari) loads the last-viewed cached page of VFD, rather than the current one. Is anyone else experiencing this? Joyous 23:55, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I've experienced it using MSIE and Firefox, both before and after the change. It's a caching issue... see Wikipedia:Clear your cache. • Benc • 00:23, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Talk page with no history except nonsense

Talk:Wombat contains nonsense as its only contribution. With nothing to revert to, what is the best action? dramatic 20:42, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Blank it. Mark Richards 20:45, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Speedy deletion. [x] done. andy 20:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Either of these will work, of course, although blanking it can be done by anyone, does not need an extra step, and does not make that high pitched screeaaching noise that those whose ears are atuned to the spirtual way of the wiki hate to hear ;) Mark Richards 20:50, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am having a frustrating time explaining why commercial rights are important for material used in Wikipedia and licensed under the GFDL. Two weeks ago I started a discussion with a user who was copying copyrighted text into Wikipedia relying on a non-commercial-use-only license. After a discussion we agreed that the text would have to be rewritten. But last week the user was again copying non-commercial-use-only material (images this time) into Wikipedia. I brought up the issue again but the user still does not see why the non-commercial use license is a problem (the user blanked the original discussion [1] on the talk page). Any thoughts or good explanations on the subject would be appreciated either here or in the discussion. Al guy 20:41, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

"Because it's illegal" wasn't a good enough explanation, eh? — Gwalla | Talk 21:31, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The response in both discussions I had with this user is that since this user is not doing anything commercial and Wikipedia is non-profit, the non-commercial license is sufficient. The added complication is that this user is a sysop. Al guy 22:02, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Jimbo is keen for wikipedia to reach the third world. He hopes that publishers will eventually produce book versions of the wikimedia projects. Now since Wikipedia is free, they will not have exclusive rights. So competition between rivals should bring the cost down to barely above the actual cost of printing. This is good becasue many people are very poor and do not have the access to knowledge that we all take for granted. Non commercial licences are not free. Therefore they are damaging to the long term goals of wikimedia. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 22:08, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not to mention that all text in the Wikipedia is and must be GFDL, and the submitter did not have the right to relicense the material he had a license to use non-commercialy, under GFDL. — David Remahl 22:16, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

ndash and mdash

I think it's around here somewhere but I can't find it.. is there a guide to usage of &ndash and &mdash entities? When should each of these be used as opposed to a hyphen? Double-hyphen? Thanks. Rhobite 19:10, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes) — David Remahl 19:32, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Quick reference, in addition to the link above: endash between dates for date ranges (unspaced; i.e. no space between the dates and the dash), emdash for open ranges (i.e. "2002—). I never use dashes in the text of an article, so that's as far as I can help. :) --Golbez 19:43, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC) (and yes, i use two hyphens for my signature. :P)
I thought we were supposed to refrain from using &ndash and &mdash in articles as they made articles harder to edit? I got yelled at a while back from using them and was told to stick to using the ugly double dashes. The yeller said there is some s/w feature that will convert all --'s to — someday. I haven't seen this feature yet, but I've been using double dashes since to avoid getting yelled at again. :-S —
I'll yell at you if you use hyphens as dashes. Some people get too caught up in the wiki thing, forgetting it is purely a means to an end. Chameleon 20:17, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Frecklefoot | Talk 20:03, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

That might have been me. :/ I used to swear by the --, but then I learned that – looks better. And if and when this vaporware ever appears, we can then change all the endashes back to regular dashes. But til then, endashes are prettier. :) --Golbez 20:10, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone. Rhobite 20:23, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I would like to point out that Xed is referring to "systemic bias" and a lot of you are responding as if he had referred to "systematic bias". The latter basically just means thoroughgoing bias. That's not what he is saying. Although he's not being terribly articulate about the matter, and I think he is being unnecessarily abrasive, "systemic bias" means that there are structural issues in Wikipedia that tend strongly towards certain topics getting much better coverage than others. I think that is clearly true. I also think there is a lot of reason for us, if we are trying to produce a quality work, to consider seriously what biases are built into the system and which of these can be addressed. I'm not sure if Xed's approach here is constructive, but I am sure he is describing a real problem.

Examples of systemic bias:

  1. Because so many Wikipedians do their research on line, topics not already well covered on the Internet tend to be under-covered in Wikipedia.
  2. Because so many English-language Wikipedians live in a very small number of countries, topics pertaining strongly to those countries are disproportionately covered.
  3. Because so many Wikipedians are interested in technology, technological topics are disproportionately well covered. Ditto science fiction. Ditto libertarianism. Conversely, and presumably for parallel reasons, there is very little on (as Xed points out) contemporary events in Africa or (as I'd point out) even on African-American history or Native American history: most of our articles on Native Americans are written from an anthropoligist's point of view, whereas our articles on (for example) punk rock or grunge rock or the science fiction fandom are consistently written with insider's knowledge.

This list is, at best, illustrative. I do think we would do well to look at the systematic biases in the Wikipedia. I think some of them can be covered by adding to the efforts at translation from other languages. Others really would require recruitment to correct, and that recruitment may depend in part on a positive community decision that the recruitment is importans, accompanied by a long, hard look at what aspects of our internal culture are not seen as welcoming by certain groups. Wikipedia is disproportionately white and male, and I don't think that is good. There are probably other similar issues that don't leap out at me as readily.

Systemic biases are not easily addressed. One of the biggest factors here is a (generally commendable) tendency to write about what one already knows about. Frankly, it's a lot easier for me to write a decent encyclopedia article on a subject where, in examining sources (or looking at other people's edits), I can look at some of them and just go "this person doesn't know his/her stuff, useless." For example, I simply don't have the knowledge to know whom to believe when two well-read Slavs are arguing over the history of Carpathian Ruthenia, but I have plenty of ability to judge whether someone is talking sense about Jorge Luis Borges. Therefore, I am a lot more likely to focus on writing about the latter. And would you really want me writing extensively about the former? In other words, some of this can only be adddressed either by recruitment and/or a serious self-educational undertaking by some of our participants.

So, Xed, sign me on to participate somewhat in your project, probably more in terms of helping strategize this than in further stretching myself as to which topics I write about.

Any other takers? Because I, for one, won't do this with less than five people involved. -- Jmabel 05:37, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

It's something that I personally recognise as a problem and something that I'd be willing, within my personal limitations, to work on and help with.
Note that, in my opinion, every time you go to an off-line source for Wikipedia articles you are helping with Wikipedia's systemic bias -- at least, the bias to write about only the stuff the Web already has information on. Every time you refer to a book, magazine, journal, or whatever, you are adding a dash of another viewpoint to the online store of knowledge. I think we should all try a little to stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zones of what we already know; and that doesn't mean one can't have fun. Find some topic you wish you knew about, go to the library or somewhere and research it, and write what you learned. Even if it's not perfect, it's better than we had. —Morven 05:59, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
I think some of the things Jmabel talking about are already happening - for instance, as WP gets more complete in certain areas, there is simply no online source to raid for additional material. Most of my content additions these days are from books, and I see a bunch of other people doing the same. (A visit to a university library really makes clear just how much is not on the net anywhere.) Likewise, we see that now that every imaginable Tolkien-related topic has an article :-), interest drops off and the action moves elsewhere. I think the most important thing to do is recruitment - everybody should try their hand at WPing, but only a subset will enjoy it enough to keep at it. Stan 06:12, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm in. The more I think about it, the more enthousiastic I become about it. One is easily tempted to write only about topics that you're already familiar with, as long as your contributing, thats marvelous. But I think a section for discussion and categorising articles that really need work for Wikipedia to be taken seriously would motivate people to expand their horizon and learn about those topics, I think it could work, but giving it a proper place with current categories like cleanup, attention, expand, collaboration article, etc. could be a challenge. -- Solitude 07:48, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Me too. How it would differ from existing pages like cleanup, attention, expand, collaboration article, etc. is that those pages exemplify the bias to some degree or another. As I read it, this proposal entails looking at all the things an encyclopaedia needs that nothing here is addressing. @Thinking outside the Wikibox', so to speak. Filiocht 09:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I have to say I'm not particularly enthused about writing stuff which is likely to engender responses along the lines of "what do you know about XYZ, you don't even live there" which I have seen elsewhere in Wikipedia. I tend to dabble in areas where I do have knowledge, and ask impertinent questions where I don't (in the hope of obtaining a pertinent answer, obviously :-) --Phil | Talk 11:01, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Count me in. I have just had this discussion brought to my attention, read through it all, and was a little taken aback by the way Xed, who I genuinely believe to have good intentions for Wikipedia, was immediately denounced as a troll. The fact is that Wikipedia is massively biased towards certain countries and certain subcultures, and while some of us are able to see that and realise that we are a part of it (I know far more about what goes on in Birmingham than what goes on in Kinshasa), there seem to be a worrying number of people who are blind to Wikipedia's bias and are unwilling to do anything about it. I agree though with much of what's been said here, specifically that in the long term only recruitment will solve our problems. Personally I don't mind that we have lengthy articles on obscure Tolkein and Star Trek characters, but I do mind that we have next to nothing on the Congo Civil War. We can only cure Wikipedia of its systemic bias if people appreciate the problem. Why the hell does www.wikipedia.org redirect to wiki.riteme.site as if English takes precedence over all other languages? Why the hell is the article on Georgia located at Georgia (country) so as to avoid confusion with an administrative subdivision of the USA? I could go on but I'll spare you the moralising. I hope we can all see that Wikipedia is undoubtedly biased — embarrassingly so — and we should be doing our best to make it as international and as neutral as possible. Please don't be complacent about this wonderful thing we are creating for the world. It is currently full of flaws. — Trilobite (Talk) 12:09, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If you care to take a look at Georgia there are at least 10 articles which a user might expect to find under that name: it therefore makes sense for the disambiguation page to live there and the different pages to be distinguished with suffices of appropriate type. I would be a lot more impressed with the arguments being presented if one single complainer said anything like "hey, I know an awful lot about the Congo Civil War, I'll write it up", rather than expecting everybody else to go away and find out about it. If one is so damn interested in a subject, one is behoven to write an article on it oneself. --Phil | Talk 14:33, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
(note: reinserted comment in order to reply to it--Xed 14:05, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC))(1. Georgia is not an administrative subdivision of the U.S. 2. When multiple articles with significant numbers of hits (i.e., 75%/25%) have the same name, it makes sense to have a dab page, though it would also make sense to put the country at "Georgia" and have a link to the state at the top. 3. But there's no compelling reason to change the status quo. Wikipedia articles aren't an honor, they're a means of disseminating information. 4. The horse is dead. Please stop beating it.) --dreish 13:35, 2004 Sep 22 (UTC)
Jiang's comments on Talk:Georgia are hilarious. What strange company you keep.--Xed 14:05, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This is the perfect illustraton, Xed, of why people are having a problem with you. If you disagree with what someone said, respond to their argument. Instead, you have a tendency to ridicule or otherwise not address the issue. Here, you're casting aspersions on Driesh's arguments based not on their own merit, but rather on who else agrees with them. Yes, Jiang said some pretty outlandish things on that page (though I suspect they were not said with a straight face), but that fact doesn't alter the truth/falsehood of the argument, does it? —Morven 15:45, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure there was an argument to respond to, which is probably Dreish originally deleted his post. Hope to see you on CROSSBOW. Love, Xed 16:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I also wanted to congratulate Xed on making a stand. One area where systemic bias is particularly worrying are borderline inclusion debates. Borderline techie/geeky topics are routinely kept as there is sufficient critical mass saying keep, whereas borderline articles in other areas get deleted. This systematic problem is not easy to resolve by just saying "so fix it then". It would require forcing people to think more deeply before editing vfd - a near impossible task. Pcb21| Pete 12:22, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps we can see a new law emerge here: 'The quantity of systemic bias in a system is directly proportional to the amount of bile raised in denying its existence.' Filiocht 13:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to the creation of Wikipedia:Articles that can do with a non-OECD perspective. There are a lot out there such as publicly funded medicine, primary education, newspaper, and history of Africa. - SimonP 16:05, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)


A few thoughts...

  1. Actually eliminating systemic bias in Wikipedia is impossible. There will always be considerable systemic bias in any compendium.
  2. Attempting to alleviate such bias is a meritorious task.
  3. Broadening the demographic involved in editing Wikipedia is an ideal approach.
  4. Actually achieving such a broadening is extremely difficult; it requires some sort of affirmative action program -- perhaps ambassadors to online or off-line systems with different demographics might be helpful.
  5. Determing which articles (or which absent articles) reflect a system bias in itself carries a systemic bias.
  6. Words are critical. As mentioned above, at least some of the argumentation in this discussion stems from the confusion between "systemic" and "systematic"; the latter implies deliberate or negligent action or inaction, while the former is a general statement of the shortcomings of the system per se. This reminds me of heated discussions in another venue (The Well, where I was a conference host for many years) where a fellow with a particular hobby horse would every couple of years come out with a strong declaration of opposition to "bastardy", one meaning of which -- the meaning intended by the author -- is "begetting of illegitimate children"; but most readers reacted strongly to his proposals, conflating "bastardy" with "bastardry", "being an illegitimate child". One little letter. Now, the author knew full well such a confusion would ensue, and he was a bit of a troll at heart (as well as being CEO of Network Solutions), so presented the argument with language that he knew would cause excessive annoyance. I don't think Xed was deliberately trying to agitate with his choice of words, but it worked. I guess the message is "pay careful attention to the words being used" for the reader, and "pay attention to how people might incorrectly perceive your words" for the writer.
  7. Some people are just too good at annoying other people. I'm reminded of the old Fidonet rule: "Don't be excessively annoying. Don't be too easily annoyed."

--Jpgordon 18:41, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A few thoughts from a very new visitor to wikipedia.

  1. I agree that there will always be some bias in this or any other encyclopedia.
  2. This is a self-organising system: as it grows it will become more and more difficult to shift it in any particular direction. It'll go where it goes.
  3. Having said that, as a frequent visitor to Africa I think there's a lot to be said for taking steps to increase coverage from that continent - and from developing/emerging nations in general.
  4. I like the idea of on-line and off-line ambassadors - is there anything like this now?
  5. I suggest approaching people like librarians at the major universities in each 'under represented' country and that they be asked to recruit undegrads (or anyone else who can find the time) to help augment the coverage for their country.
  6. other government organisations - like tourism authorities - could also be approached but may be more biased.
  7. I'm happy to try to get the ball running in Tanzania - a country I visit from time to time.
  8. I'd also be happy to attempt to write an outline, and informal job description for the 'ambassador' role - generally speaking their job would be to raise the profile of Wiki in their country and to encourage people to contribute. (I'd add that I'm from the UK, am not a 'techie' and have only just heard about the wikipedia - likewise most of the colleagues, relatives and friends I've just told about it!)
  9. Comments anyone?

Jerry cornelius 11:54, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)


As a sidelight on this, I found the following on User:Jimbo Wales/Pushing To 1.0:

Britannica exists to support a particular canon, that being, the British and now American concept of "what history is." It is, for instance, light on the History of India, China, Africa, Latin America and figures of those cultures - one way Wikipedia can differentiate itself is to say that it is less Anglo-centric than Britannica. Build up an audience in developing nations who can really benefit from having a neutral encyclopedia — like in China where Wikipedia.org is banned, but they won't be able to keep all the CD-ROMs out. It may thus make sense to *focus on Chinese figures and history* deliberately. How can they keep out the only encyclopedia that does their history justice?

Filiocht 12:42, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)


As a relatively new contributor to Wikipedia, I soon noticed the systemic bias referred to by Xed and more eloquently described and explained by Jmabel. Although you certainly could argue that such a bias will be more or less unavoidable in an English language Internet-based open project, that's not really a valid argument for not discussing what could possibly be done about it. I fully agree with Jmabel that this is something that ought to be adressed in order to improve the scope and usefulness of Wikipedia. However, as many have already pointed out, this cannot and should not be solved by forcing people to contribute in areas they have no interest in contributing to. There are a number of constructive proposals that could be made, and although none of these might come anywhere close to being the complete remedy for this problem, they will most likely all be beneficial to a larger or smaller extent. In the following list, I'll try to summarise the proposals that I've been able to distinguish in the discussion above, adding my thoughts on them.

  1. A section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page that deals with the issue, as proposed by Xed. Closely related to this idea are other suggestions proposing different types of lists of suitable articles for expansion, such as the creation of Wikipedia:Articles that can do with a non-OECD perspective, as proposed by SimonP.
  2. Using the existing Wikipedia:Collaboration_of_the_week, Requests for expansion and Wikipedia:Requested articles, adding suitable articles for expansion to these pages, possibly including a comment on the "encyclopedia that Slashdot built" problem. To some extent this is already happening, which is something I find uplifting. This strategy might be used as an alternative to 1. in order to avoid partially overlapping pages, or together with 1. as a complement. I think I'd actually prefer the former, considering the number of "to do" pages already existing.
  3. Intensifying the efforts to translate articles from other Wikipedias, as proposed by Jmabel. I think that in order to actually increase the number of translations made, something concrete must be done to encourage and facilitate the process, opening participation to people lacking the courage or language skills to complete this task on their own. One approach could be forming "translation teams" consisting of one person with fluency in the foreign language in question and a reasonable but not necessarily perfect grasp of English, and one person with fluency in English, working together on the translation of an article.
  4. Trying to widen the contributor base by reaching out to people representing Wikipedia minorities, encouraging them to contribute. Jerry cornelius' idea, to approach university staff in under-represented countries is one way of doing this. I think this is an excellent proposal. This kind of outreach could be extended to under-represented groups in general, for instance by asking for a mention of Wikipedia, or even some free ad space, on community and organisational web sites and paper publications catering to such groups.
  5. Forming a group of Wikipedians working with some or all of these tasks. I think this is a good idea, and I would be willing to participate.

There must surely be possible to come up with other strategies, and I'd like to encourage further creative thinking on this subject. Alarm 17:40, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(moved from policy section)

What's there to deal with. Fanboys write long and detailed articles; we deal with that all the time on VfD. The Congo Civil War is very important, so the solution is to work on expanding it. Or do you suggest that we enforce caps on the size of articles according to their relative importance? --Ardonik.talk()* 19:15, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
No, as I said I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this. The section would list articles which, if created/edited/expanded would counter-act the systemic bias.--Xed 19:25, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Who decides? :ChrisG 19:36, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Like what? Sure, Congo Civil War, but any other ideas? And what about the non-North American bias that would start to show? At what point should we begin refocusing on stuff we know more about? --Golbez 19:42, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
This is a very valid concern. Please note, however, that we can't (and shouldn't) twist editors' arms to force them to write about topics that don't particularly interest them. Certain subjects will always get more interested editors than others. For the time being, this is a fact of life. The long-term, general solution is to expand our userbase until we have experts (or at least interested amateurs) in all revelant fields and topics.
Also: there are several mechanisms in place to address this problem now. Formally, Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics and (to a lesser extent) Wikipedia:Requested articles are the primary mechanisms to fill holes. Informally, User:Mark Richards periodically posts The "Encyclopedia that Slashdot Built" Awards to the Village Pump as a method of constructive criticism to help solve blatant imbalances. I'd suggest talking to him if you want to make the process more formal. Also, Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week attempts to expand an article per week. The vast majority of COTW articles have been globally relevant. • Benc • 02:39, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I have no connection to the Congo Civil War, I don't know anything about the Congo Civil War, and I don't even know where to find information about the Congo Civil War. I suspect this is true of many or even most people. Don't berate us for not writing about a topic they don't know anything about. -- Cyrius|✎ 03:29, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"geeky" articles are not competing with "serious" articles. because the encyclopedia is not published on paper. I still think the notion of this kind of bias is misguided. Every article should be taken at face value, without going to check if someone may have written a longer article about Babylon 5 somewhere. WP should try to attract people of other fields of expertise, but it's certainly not a solution to make people write about subjects they know nothing about. dab 11:25, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

May require multiple projects

It's become pretty clear to me that, despite some confluence, Xed and I have very different visions of the nature of the systemic bias. I'm taking the liberty of copying the key exchange:

An excellent map of media bias can be seem here, courtesy of Ethan Zuckerman. He has also written an essay which deals with many relevant issues. --Xed 02:04, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I suggest countries not on the Bottom 100 lists below should be ignored when choosing CROSSBOW subjects: (Xed, though unsigned; his list can be seen at [2]. It's interesting.)

  • Do I understand the previous comment to mean that you feel this project should not be looking at neglected aspects of women's history, African-American history, etc.? -- Jmabel 03:21, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
Women exist in the countries below. And they certainly are very neglected aspects of women's history. And American history seems well within the bias zone. For focus, the crossbow should aim at the bulls-eye. --Xed 04:08, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
OK, since you are doing this in your personal pages rather than as a WikiProject, I guess you get to call the shots. Sounds like you will not be focused on areas where I have expertise, either in the subject matter or in whom we might recruit. I'll just duck out of this. Best of luck. -- Jmabel 18:40, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I do strongly encourage people who have expertise or interest in, for example, Central Africa and Central Asia to work with Xed on this. Meanwhile, if anyone is interested in starting a WikiProject on African-American topics, or addressing the under-coverage of women's history in the Western world, plese get hold of me, I'd love to participate and might even have ideas about recruiting people. -- Jmabel 19:17, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to bed. If anyone is willing to help me produce a beta version of section I sketched out above, please sign your name below. For Popperian reasons, I would prefer to have people critical of the idea as well as supporters.--Xed 03:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Right, hang on, let me summarise this discussion so far:

  1. Xed "There is systemic bias in Wikipedia (and nobody appears to mind)"
  2. Everyone else (with varying amounts of civility): "What is your proposed remedy / action?"
  3. Xed "We could have a list of articles that need creating or expanding for this reason"
  4. (Nearly) everyone else: "Can we have a demonstration?"
  5. Repeat
More like:
    1. Xed "There is systemic bias in Wikipedia, here is my suggestion - put a section on the Community portal page"
    2. Others - we agree.
    3. Wikiclique - do it yourself and stop being lazy.
    4. User:Neutrality - 3 million dead is funny, I will vandalise the page
    5. Wikiclique - You are a troll
    6. Tagishsimon - beep beep I am a robot.
    7. Wikiclique - But you haven't made a suggestion
    8. and repeat

--Xed 01:36, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Xed, grow the hell up and stop calling us names like "wikiclique." I don't think you even want to be taken seriously. --Ardonik.talk()* 02:18, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Stop lying. I never "vandalized this page," nor did I say 3 million dead is funny. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 02:47, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

So, instead of trading insults, let's look at the deatils and feasibility of this suggestion:

  • what would be the criteria for listing?
  • how would it differ from other "to-do" type lists, such as Cleanup, Requests for expansion, Requested articles, and the List of encyclopedia topics that someone mentioned?
    • relatedly, how can we ensure that each of these pages retains its usefulness as others spring up with overlapping roles; or have we got too many and need to rethink how we organise them?
  • do existing pages address the issue of systemic bias simply through "the community process"?
    • if not, why not, and is there a way we can change this? (e.g. some kind of rules for Requested articles that tend towards correcting rather than increasing the "lean"?)

Discuss. - IMSoP 01:25, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) [Typed simultaneous to Morven's comment above; perhaps these questions could form the basis of such a page.]

There's an option 2a, and that is "Wikipedia could be improved, and there are several ways of doing it. Here's the one I'll work on".

I can't see any prospect of eliminating systemic bias from Wikipedia, but I can see several ways of trying to reduce it.

The one that is most likely to succeed IMO is simple Wikiquette. We are I hope all aware of the policy of not biting newbies, and also the more general policy of not biting anybody.

Sticking to these policies will reduce systemic bias by broadening our contributor base. Or, to put it another way, every time we condone violations we are increasing the bias, because the presence of rudeness, aggro and even rhetoric in our discussion pages is a far greater obstacle to the participation of minority-view editors than to others. Andrewa 01:49, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is the one long-term solution to the problem that will work. Committing a group of interested people to go and help is laudable, but in the long term, expanding the contributor base will have a far more powerful effect. Tempshill 17:23, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Surely the Congo War is an extreme case. By the argument of deaths alone, articles on Starvation, Old age, Heart Disease should be far far longer and more detailed than everything else. Surely importance is something decided by the reader - in the end, wikipedia has a target audience, and the expansion of articles is almost directly based on the level of interest this audience has for the various subjects. If no one searches wikipedia for the Congo War (possibly because despite the death toll, the war has very little global impact, unlike 9/11, and because little information is available for it from base sources), then harsh as it may be, it is not important to the average reader. So, your ire is misdirected. I wouldn't call it bias. Rather, its reflecting western culture.

On the contrary, the Congo War has had massive global impact – nine different countries ahve been involved. Just because they don't happen to be in your part of the globe shows your own bias. Secondly, I didn't make the argument by deaths alone. Thirdly, a subjet shouldn't be avoided simply because it is a difficult one to comprehend or far away--Xed 02:18, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So basically, what you are really proposing is to deploy WP as a tool to change the minds of the populace, to open their eyes. To become much less an encyclopedia, but more a source of investigative journalism. The argument then is whether wikipedia can, and should fulfill that aim.

Again, someone is putting words into my mouth. I'm talking about the character of Wikipedia, and how people who WANT to counter-act the systemic bias can be given more oppurtunities to do so.--Xed 02:18, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
So do something already. Every second you spend picking fights here is one second less for counteracting the systemic bias of Wikipedia—and yet you continue trolling rather than making a single constructive edit. —No-One Jones (m) 02:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This is disappointing. Did you even read the comments by IMSoP and Andrewa? No biting. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]]

(I hence wouldn't term it 'removing systematic bias', since bias is pretty vague and subjective. Its more coverage of events outside the public awareness. If this is to work at all, we need to construct a highly visible way of showcasing such content.)--Fangz 02:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Comments like Xed's come along from time to time, but the underlying message I always get is "you should stop working on you want to work on, and work on what I want you to work on instead, because I think it's more important". Browbeating people with charges of "systemic bias" or whatever is just a technique to try to make us feel guilty, but you know what? This is a hobby, not a job, and no one is going to push me into doing anything that I don't want to do. Stan 02:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good for you. No one is pushing you to do anything. You have misread what I have said. Again and again I have said - edit what you want. DON'T STOP WORKING ON WHAT YOU WANT TO. I'm talking about people who WANT to counter-act the systemic bias and how they can be given more oppurtunities to do so.--Xed 02:35, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Raul's law of Wikipedia #3 - "You cannot motivate people on a large scale to write about something they don't want to write about". →Raul654 02:42, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Well Xed, there's already nothing to stop random people from working energetically to "counter-act the systemic bias" that they perceive. Ergo, I conclude that you're wanting people to do something different than what they're doing now. If you don't want anybody to do anything different, then what's the point of telling us that we're not working on the right subjects? It doesn't make any sense. Stan 04:34, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Community_Portal is not locked. Xed can go there and start eliminating bias, as he has suggested here seven times without bothering to do so. Does he expect ... what? acclaim for his suggestion? Actions speak louder, you know, than those other things. Ortolan88 02:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Systemic bias in Wikipedia

Wikipedia's own page on Wikipedia states that "Wikipedia is committed to making its articles as unbiased as possible." However, there is still no mechanism for removing the systemic bias present in Wikipedia. I'm talking about the bias caused mainly by Wikipedia's demographic make-up (mainly North American computer literate types). Pages such as Wikipedia:Collaboration_of_the_week, Wikipedia:Requested articles etc don't specifically attack the problem, and often serve to perpetuate it. An example of this problem is that even after 1 million articles have been written, the article on the Congo Civil War, possibly the largest war since World War 2 (and which resulted in over 3 million deaths), have much less information than articles such as Babylon 5, Languages_of_Middle-earth, Slackware etc which appear to fit into the Wikipedia demographic. I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this issue.--Xed 18:57, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There's a very easy fix for this: Get more people involved who aren't North Americans. I hereby assign you to the job. - DavidWBrooks 18:51, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The above response sadly demonstrates the self-satisfied attitude of many Wikipedians to this problem--Xed 18:57, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Is your "someone else should fix it" attitude an improvement? Regardless, an imbalance in article quantity is not a "bias". --P3d0 03:35, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Replies_to_common_objections#Systemic_bias. While insufficient content in an area is always an issue, an imbalance of contributors isn't necessarily one. Derrick Coetzee 19:07, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
As mentioned above, I guess the only way to stop this is expanding the Wikipedia user base with more people from different backgrounds. If it bothers you, I'd suggest you specialize in promoting wikipedia to as much people as you can to solve the problem. MGM 19:14, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not Superman. I can only do so much. With 1 million articles, this problem needs to be addressed in a more organized way.--Xed 19:30, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Such as? Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 19:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
As I said I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this. The section would list articles which, if created/edited/expanded would counter-act the systemic bias.--Xed 19:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
When the Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the World Book, were written, what order did they go in? Did they start with World War II, or did they start alphabetically, perhaps with aardvark? Did they start with countries, or with people? The fact is, Wikipedia is, and will always be, a work in progress. If you want more coverage of the Congo Civil War, by all means, add it, and try to get others to help you. But the fact there is more information on Babylon 5 than the Congo Civil War does not mean there's a bias. If a writer of Britannica got writer's block while drafting the World War II article, should they not let others proceed with articles on other, less important subjects? It may just mean we haven't gotten around to it.
Furthermore, if there IS such a bias (and I will agree with you, en: is mostly computer literate English-speaking North Americans and Britons), ... there's really not much we can do about that, is there. You say, "do something." I say, "like what?" --Golbez 19:41, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
As I said I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this. The section would list articles which, if created/edited/expanded would counter-act the systemic bias.--Xed 19:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
What can we do? All I can think of is (1) Spread knowledge of Wikipedia as far as we can, in the hope of attracting as diverse an editor pool as we can; (2) make some effort at identifying areas of poor coverage, to guide editors who might be looking for something to research. —Morven 19:47, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

So quit bitching and do something about it already. Make the list of articles that you think would help counteract the systemic bias; start it at User:Xed/Anti-Systemic-bias list and see if you can get consensus for including it on the community portal. Then go work on the articles yourself. —No-One Jones (m) 19:57, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Smugness about this problem, and its size, seems to be common among some people. If there's over 1 million articles I can hardly do it all myself. Furthermore, it's not up to me to make this list. Which is why I suggest a section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal page to deal with this. The section would list articles which, if created/edited/expanded would counter-act the systemic bias.--Xed 20:05, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You may not be able to do it all yourself but you can at least make a start. If you aren't willing to put forth even that minimal effort then I suggest you quit your whinging. —No-One Jones (m) 20:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are starting to sound like a troll, Xed. If you want to help, it is up to you to create this list. If you only want to interfere with what other people are working on, go somewhere else. Awolf002 20:28, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A troll is someone who wants to improve Wikipedia?--Xed 21:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • "You are starting to sound like a troll, Xed" - BWAHAHAHA! RickK 21:02, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)


Morven's idea is interesting - has there been any serious attempt to map the areas that have the least coverage? Mark Richards 20:31, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Xed, the part of Wikipedia you wan't to be more important, is growing. But it won't outgrow the Slackware+Babylon 5 part for some time, I guess. But IMHO, there is no conflict between these parts. Anyway, you can't transform a good contributor on Slackware into a good contributor on Congo Civil War, most of the time. But the growth of Wikipedia will give more public visibility, which will result in new contributors. Think of the North American computer literate types as the first wave of contributors with more waves rolling in. Perhaps the most important point in making this concept work, is to ensure that Wikipedia is a friendly environment for new contributors. Pjacobi 20:32, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The response here isn't too friendly. See No-one's comment above.--Xed 21:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The response would be a lot friendlier if you'd quit whinging, quit trying to pick fights, and get to work on the problem. Obviously. —No-One Jones (m) 00:26, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The bias discussed here is present in the range of existing articles, not in the text of any one article. An important distinction, imho. In the latter case, an active effort would be required to remove the bias from the text. As it is, we can just wait for WP to outgrow the bias. And if there is a decent article on the war in the Congo, it is not degraded by any number of geeky articles that may exist beside it. Yes, we are a long way from WP 1.0. But as long as nobody claims that WP is a valid replacement for the Britannica yet, this is a non-issue. dab 20:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The 'geeky articles' will continue to grow, so I don't see how 'serious' articles have a chance to catch up without any organized effort--Xed 21:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe it would help to add a new template stating something in this direction: "This article needs attention, for a encyclopedia of Wikipedia's size and stature it is highly undeveloped, considering the relative importance of the subject". This allows easy categorization, and allows people interested in filling the gaps in Wikipedia knowledge, that are caused by WP demographics to be, to find these articles easily. -- Solitude 20:59, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

That is a possibility.--Xed 21:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Ugh, NO! RickK 21:02, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Also, while en: is the largest wikipedia, it is not the only one. IIRC, it makes up only 1/3 of the articles on Wikipedia. es:, de: and jp: are all much more likely to have articles on Spanish/Latin American, German and Japanese interests, just as en: is more likely to have articles on Anglo-Australian interests. These will outgrow with time, but we only have a million articles. ;) --Golbez 21:05, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I'm something of a newbie, but wouldn't the Congo Civil War article (for example) be appropriate for Wikipedia:Requests_for_expansion? Jpgordon 21:10, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For a few articles which you most care about expanding, why not nominate them for Collaboration of the Week, at WP:COTW?-gadfium 22:22, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you can find, say, half a dozen others who want to work with you on this, you could start a project group. They don't all have to be on subject matter areas. Xed, there isn't a someone else who needs to start this, you have to decide what is important and start building, or find a group of people who want to work with you on it. It's unlikely that you will get consensus to go straight to the Community Portal without demonstrating some smaller-scale success first, and it may turn out that Community Portal is irrelevant (but do start making nominations for Wikipedia:Collaboration_of_the_week: in my experience, a cluster of related articles tend to get written. -- Jmabel 23:19, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I cannot help but feel that the premise of Xed's argument is a little shaky. A pejoritive accusation of systematic bias is at best a value judgement. What underpins it? Why is a war in the Congo worth more wiki-inches than Babylon 5? Who decides these things, and who is able to make apple versus orang-utan comparisons? Whereas I tend to share what I assume is Xed's opinion, that it would be more worthy to read about or even write about the Congolese civil war than Bablylon 5, I note that we already have a number of Wikipedia:Requested articles pages which go some way to address/answer Xed's call for action; and also have Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics. In what way do these differ from Xed's section on the Wikipedia:Community_Portal suggestion? Beyond that, his/her argument seems to be a good example of the best driving out the good. --Tagishsimon
'Why is a war in the Congo worth more wiki-inches than Babylon 5?' - because the Congo Civil War resulted in 3 million deaths and is possibly the largest war since WW2. Surely it can't be difficult to see why it needs more coverage. Look how much coverage 9/11 has on Wikipedia, and that was only 3 thousand deaths. The Wikipedia:Requested articles page does not deal specifically with the issue of systemic bias.--Xed 00:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You should also complain to EB then. Their article on it is even shorter than ours. -- Wapcaplet 02:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If it is "not difficult to see", then why are you unable to explain why it is more important? If you are unable to explain why, then perhaps it is just a value judgement on your part. Waving the magnitude of the death toll does not amount to an argument. --Tagishsimon
I have explained. Your arguments would only make sense coming from a robot or a lawyer--Xed 00:58, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
There I must beg to differ: you have not explained. You have articulated a value judgement with no explanation whatsoever, and you do not eecognise your judgement for what it is. Your premise is indeed flawed, and I submit that any resolution based on a flawed premise will itself be flawed. Neither have you explained by what mechanism will be determined the actions that must be taken to correct the supposed systematic bias. All in all, much heat but not very much light. --Tagishsimon
It should be exceedingly obvious that a war affecting the lives of millions of real people and having a profound impact on the politics of several nations is far more important than a television program which cannot reasonably be said to have significantly affected the lives of anyone. See abstraction, problem of universals, phenomenology, abstract structure, and reification. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 01:08, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Doubtless it should be but it isn't. It depends upon your frame of reference, and of necessity is a value judgement. That is the way of these things; all else is little more than hysteria. But you made a slightly better stab at it than did Xed. --Tagishsimon
01010110100100110111010100011 beep beep. Would you regard the Holocaust article more or less important than Babylon 5? Or would that be a value judgement?--Xed 01:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me that you consider the comparitive quality of, say, Holocaust and Babylon 5 to be an issue. I think this is the sticking point in this disagreement.
In other words, you say "It's a disgrace that we have an excellent article on X but a bad one on Y." But why does the quality of article X matter? It's like you feel it's an insult to "worthy topics" to have so many good articles on "trivial topics". —Morven 01:30, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
The quality of X certainly doesn't matter. Your straw man is getting taller and taller--Xed 01:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If I'm an editor who knows more about Babylon 5 than the Holocaust, should I be encouraged to contribute to the article that I know, or the one that is deemed more important? (To forestall any baseless accusations right away, I am not trying to diminish the significance of the Holocaust. But this question is important to me, and I'd like to read your answer.) --Ardonik.talk()* 01:40, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not talking about what you know, or indeed edit. Edit what you want. I'm talking about the character of Wikipedia, and how people who WANT to counter-act the systemic bias can be given more oppurtunities to do so - hence a list on the Community Portal page.--Xed 01:55, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It should be noted that most of the above discussion only strengthens Xed's position. From the crude sample here, it would appear that most Wikipedians hold a blind faith in the infallibility of community editing, minds closed to any suggestion otherwise. The community does have a systemic bias, supported by sheeplike herd behavior when anything appears that threatens the status quo. Musk oxen may be more apt: Wikipedian protectionism is generally predictably odious, mindlessly guarding of its central beliefs, and too stubborn and dense to usefully argue with. At least sheep are polite. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 00:19, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Community editing isn't infallible, but it is all we have. You'll note that some people are A) acknowledging that the problem exists and B) making suggestions on how to fix it. You could too, instead of flinging insults. —No-One Jones (m) 00:26, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It's not blind faith, for most of us. Community editing has its problems, but it also has its strengths. Most of us consider the latter to very much outweigh the former. Suggestions of how to mitigate the weaknesses are always appreciated, at least by me. —Morven 00:51, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Note: User 'Neutrality' vandalised this page, before it was fixed by User Eequor.--Xed 00:29, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Stop lying. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 00:41, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Check the history. [3]--Xed 00:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Xed, I don't think that's vandalism. I think you're trolling, too. --Ardonik.talk()* 01:21, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Xed, there are two possible routes to choose when you notice something wrong with Wikipedia. They are:

  1. Say "Wikipedia's broken. You guys should fix it."
  2. Say "Wikipedia's broken. Here's my proposal for fixing it. Anyone want to help?"

Oddly enough, option 2 is appreciated much more than option 1. If a problem is not important enough for you to wish to be part of the solution to it, of course everyone will conclude you're whining -- or just intent on arguing. —Morven 01:02, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

That's why I chose option 2, suggesting a section on the Community Portal page, which of course I would be willing to help with.--Xed 01:14, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Why not knock together a page inside the Wikipedia namespace, as a few people have suggested, and let people see what they think of the idea, then? —Morven 01:23, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I've hacked up a script to select random articles with probability proportional to their popularity, measured by raw hit counts. The difference in quality between a 100 articles selected using the "Random Page" link, and 100 articles selected using the script is striking — and, I guess, obvious. In particular, I would emphasise caution with "Random Page" surveys — they don't accurately represent the Wikipedia that our readers are encountering. — Matt 15:13, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Excellent work! That is striking, indeed. Fredrik | talk 15:38, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Wow look how many hits Zoophilia has. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 19:50, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I often use random page and I frequently notice that when I do some minor edit on a long unedited page, it frequently gets several additional edits or expansions after it appears on recent changes. So I am not sure that ranking random choices by popularity is necessarily a good choice. Rmhermen 18:20, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
The weighting was done based on number of hits, not number of edits. Remember that only a very, very small fraction of all Wikipedia readers are Wikipedians and engage in editing. And out of those, only a fraction have made a habit of checking recent changes. I think that the exposure created by RC virtually disappears in the noise of regular Wikipedia readers' activities. — David Remahl 18:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've noticed exactly the same thing. But that's really a separate issue - if anyone wants to work on some random pages, looking for things to improve, but also wants to have a reasonable chance that their improvements will end up being seen by a reasonable number of viewers, Matt's script is an excellent starting point. —Stormie 06:11, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Article Titles

There's obviously a great deal of emphasis placed on ensuring similar articles follow a template; wickifying. However, what about article titles? This seems to be a problem widespread across Wikipedia, usually on lists of... articles, for example, the following all exist for the National Park articles:

  • List of National Parks in country
  • List of National Parks of country
  • National Parks of country
  • Country's National Parks

The same is true for football teams, rivers, and many more. This means for that many people assume a page doesnt exist because nothing appears when they type in the title that is used on other similar articles.

At the very least we should be activly encouraging users to insert redirects, but should be looking to wickify article titles.

Sorry to go on! rant over :P Grunners 14:17, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers, Wikipedia:WikiProject Protected Areas. Rmhermen 16:58, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Oddly named Wikipedia mirrors

Literary Expert ?

List of years in literature shows two dates, 1838 and 1828, for publication of The Birds of America by John James Audubon. I can't find the proper date. Maybe someone here knows. Thanks. JillandJack 13:36, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The problem is there is no single date. The first (Havell) edition was published in sets of 5 followed by a four volume complete betewwn 1826 and 1838. Hope this helps. Filiocht 14:14, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject namespace

Discussion is now live on whether or not to establish a separate WikiProject namespace! Let your opinions be known at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject! Let the Spirit of Consensus-Based Decision Making move you to form a few coherent thoughts! Doing so will make you popular, and more attractive to one or more sexes! Act now! Tuf-Kat 07:23, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

ERROR ON FRONT PAGE

The link to the community portal points to the edit link, not the page link.--Etaonish 02:51, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Note to admins: You may consider using plain HTML instead of wiki markup to fix the link temporarily, if there isn't any faster solution. Etz Haim 03:27, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I couldn't figure out what exactly was wrong, but for now i replaced the link with a HTML link as you suggested. Thanks for picking that up. -- Chris 73 Talk 04:35, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
Red links where there should be blue ones instead; This has happened before and I've posted something on the pump too. I'm not a wiki, database, or CMS expert, but this might have to do something with not updating cached content on the server. Etz Haim 04:44, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

1 mil! Break out the champaigne!

Nuff said. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:47, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Caw! I beat you to it, mate. Better luck at two million (at this rate, that'll be around Saturday or so.) --Ardonik.talk()* 07:30, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
Wow! Hey... if we got rid of WP:VFD, we could probably hit 3 mil by, oh, let's say 7 pm. ;-) func(talk) 15:28, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ways of determining article size

From what I can gather, from both alternative and normal methods, the average Wikipedia article is around 340 words in length and 2.25kb in size. Since I am committed to the quality of the articles I create and modify over the long term, I am aiming for a personal goal of at least three times the average. ie around 1100 words and about 7Kb of readable text.

So far, the only method of finding out this information is to place the article name in the search box and press "search". That has given me the kb size of the article - but I am wondering how much of that size is text and how much are images. Lately, whenever I have tried to find the size of an article I get Wikipedia search is disabled for performance reasons. You can search via Google or Yahoo! in the meantime. which is really quite annoying. Since Google haven't yet discovered the pages I have updated, any Google search ends up with no article.

Is it possible to create a special webpage (not a Wiki) where you can type in the Wikipedia article location (eg: wiki.riteme.site/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College), and then get the following statistics:

  • Total size of article (in kb)
  • Total size of text (in kb)
  • Total size of readable text (in kb)
  • Total size of all images in article (in kb)
  • Readable Word Count (excluding headings etc as per definitions of article count - alternative)
  • Amount of internal links
  • Amount of external links

As well as up-to-date information on the page which shows what the average Wikipedia article is like in comparison to the article, plus additional information on the language version. (eg Average Wikipedia article size is 2078 bytes, compared to English language article size of 2315 bytes)

I realise that quantity is not always the best indicator - however I have no doubt about my own personal skills in writing over 1000 words of decent quality prose.

I don't know a great deal about programming and web pages - but I am assuming that the actual software that is required for this sort of activity can be embedded into the actual webpage itself. This means that when the person hits "go", all the processing power to work out the information is done by his own PC rather than the Wiki CPUs.

This sort of thing would really help me to create nice big articles. I am of the opinion that Wikipedia is excellent in quantity but is growing in quality. This sort of thing should help us all make better articles. What do you think?

One Salient Oversight 23:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You say you're not a programmer, so this might not help you too much, but are you aware that the entire Wikipedia database can be downloaded and that individual pages can be exported? anthony (see warning) 13:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
However, Special:Export returns raw Wiki code, which must be parsed somehow. Downloading every image to determine their sizes is awkward, and downloading the entire database is either impractical or infeasible. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 14:18, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've posted this to MediaZilla as feature request 547. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 14:35, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Merging/deleting an article

I noticed something odd: There is the article electronic counter-measures and electronic countermeasures. Can they be merged and then have one deleted? Cap'n Refsmmat 22:29, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Generally the process is to merge and turn one into a redirect. No admin support needed, but definitely talk about it with the editors of those pages. There should be some relevant Wikipedia namespace page on merging. Derrick Coetzee 22:41, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You are looking for Wikipedia:Duplicate articles -- Chris 73 Talk 00:33, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

HELP! URGENT! High-speed page creation/page move vandal!

User:Willy on wheels! Please help! [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 22:22, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Contribs:

  • 03:19, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) Wikipedia:Votes for deletion (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion moved to Votes for Willys) (New)
  • 03:19, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) User talk:Francs2000 (User talk:Francs2000 moved to Talk:Willys 2000) (New)
  • 03:19, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress (Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress moved to Wikipedia:Willys in progress) (New)
  • 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) User:Francs2000 (User:Francs2000 moved to Willys 2000) (New)
  • 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) Willy on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels (New)
  • 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) Willy on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels (New)
  • 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) Willy on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels (New)
  • 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) User talk:Raul654 (User talk:Raul654 moved to Talk:654 Willys on 654 Wheels) (New)
  • 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) User:Raul654 (User:Raul654 moved to 654 Willys on 654 Wheels) (New)
  • 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) Willy on Wheels
  • 03:18, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) Willy on Wheels on Wheels on Wheels (New)
  • 03:17, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) User talk:Grunt (User talk:Grunt moved to Talk:Willy on Wheels on Wheels.) (New)
  • 03:17, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) User:Grunt (User:Grunt moved to Willy on Wheels on Wheels.) (New)
  • 03:17, Sep 21, 2004 (hist) User:Willy on wheels! (New)
I've left a message at User talk:Guanaco. Guanaco seems to be active now.
Acegikmo1 22:24, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've blocked him for 24 days, modify his sentence if you like. -- user:zanimum
Please ban his IP so he can't come back under a different name. --Ardonik.talk()* 22:45, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
How does one do that? (find an IP/range) -- user:zanimum

For discussion of Willy's ban: Wikipedia:Vandalism_in_progress#Willy_on_wheels.21_.28URGENT:_returning_high-speed_page-move_vandal.29

One million articles - add to September 20?

Would it be appropriate to mention the one-million-article milestone on the date page September 20? —Etaoin 20:50, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No.
I thought it violated Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, but then I checked Wikipedia Day -- it is linked to from January 15. Not that such a link is definitive, but it suggests we may have decided in the past that it was acceptable. Important question -- would we note the date that Brittanica hit its millionth article? If so, I think we can add it. If not, however, I think we leave it alone. Jwrosenzweig 20:53, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
There is no definitive date for that. Unless they keep detailed records of when articles are paid for, you'd have only the option of mentioning when the first edition of Britannica with 1m went to print. Does anyone else think Wikipedia:September 20, etc. would be advisable. Essentially an alternative archive to Wikipedia:Announcements. -- user:zanimum
It doesn't really violation Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, which says that "Wikipedia can, of course, write about Wikipedia, but context is important." In this case I think it's in bad taste, though, as Wikipedia hitting one million articles has too low an impact on the world to be chosen as one of the fewer than 100 events in the last 2000 years which gets put on that page. anthony (see warning) 21:16, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That puts things into the appropriate perspective. --Ardonik.talk()* 21:20, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
Good point. Are articles like Wikipedia:September 20 appropriate? The way announcements are now aren't that timeless. -- user:zanimum

I agree with Anthony about the big picture. The appropriate place to put this is generally on Meta (remember, this milestone is all Wikipedias, not just the English one). Pages there include Wikipedia timeline and Milestones. I find that better than Wikipedia:September 20. --Michael Snow 21:33, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Anthony also, though I will note that some events make it onto dates without meeting quite so strict a criterion. And I want to note also for anyone's benefit that a fairly decent list of important Wikipedia dates is at History of Wikipedia -- since the days are wikified, a what links here from a given day (say, September 20) will note it's linked to from History of Wikipedia. I don't know how useful that is, given the number of articles linking to days. But I thought it worth mentioning. Jwrosenzweig 21:50, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

1 million wikipedia articles

Everyone give yourself a big pat on the back for making wikipedia what it is! :) Darksun 18:49, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Congrats to all the fellow wikipedians! BACbKA 19:16, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
And there was much rejoicing! :) -- [[User:Bobdoe|BobDoe]] 19:55, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, guys, but I already beat you to it. (This really does belong in the news section, though.) --Ardonik.talk()* 19:59, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
(news)? When did this happen? -- Cyrius|✎ 20:28, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Does that include redirects? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:43, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
AFAIK, no redirects, no Wikipedia:, no talk:, no user:, no user_talk:, no category:, no templates, or thing like that. Old article counts also excluded stubs, then defined as an article without a comma (unless there is no comma equivilent in the language). -- user:zanimum

Benzite / Benzites

The article Benzites should really be moved to the singular noun, Benzite, but the latter has an edit history and so the former can't be moved. Can anyone help? --Arteitle 06:40, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

You could list it at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles. T.P.K. 10:09, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've cleared it up. -- user:zanimum

Box problem

Can someone clue me in on why the boxes templated in at Wikipedia:WikiProject World music aren't displaying right? (I use Mozilla on a Mac) They work fine in the articles they're in, individually, but not there. Tuf-Kat 04:18, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

I think it's a bug. Adding returns instead of spaces causes the boxes to appear (In Firefox 1.0PR on W2K). Take a look at it now. --Rossumcapek 04:27, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Looks good, thanks. Tuf-Kat 04:51, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Tested in Mozilla PC, works there too, terrible black lines in the boxes, though. I like the clean, borderless look of rendered by IE. -- user:zanimum

Article dumping

User:Password keeps dumping into wikipedia verbose articles from everywhere. Typical examples are Snake teeth and Flora and fauna of Guantanamo Bay. Praise to him, he gives proper references. Many of them are .gov texts; public domain, but way too verbose for encyclopedia IMO. Not to say that many articles are orphans. Also, I stumbled upon him when detecting a possible copyvio of Butterfly odor. Please, some of vikipedia veterans, talk to this guy. Mikkalai 21:46, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

He doesn't seem to be stopping... contributions by Password - [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 00:49, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The dance articles such as Castle walk, Minuet step, and Walking Boston are all possible copyvios: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dihtml/dires.html Rhobite 01:14, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
Snake teeth and Flora and fauna of Guantanamo Bay don't look too verbose to me. They need a bit of work in formatting and writing style, especially snake teeth, but I'm not sure why you would want to remove them. -- Tim Starling 03:57, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
These will make fine articles after the usual adaptation process. Copyvio is a definite concern though — not even all .gov sources are public domain. Derrick Coetzee 16:29, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"dumping" is a good term because the articles are raw dumps basically. There are procedures and methods for example on how to deal with 1911 articles. He has not even corrected the scanning errors in them (probably copyvio from an online source).Stbalbach 08:15, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Snake teeth contains text found in The Snakes of Europe. From the first page of the web edition:

This electronic edition is ©2000 by Arment Biological Press

The original text is in the public domain, however all changes, formatting and presentation of thisPublication are copyrighted by the current publisher.

ISBN 1-930585-09-08

If the text is being scanned from an actual old copy of the work than there should be no copyright problem. Otherwise Arment may have included purposeful changes, that is rephrasing, changes in punctuation, spelling, and so forth as a method of detection of coyright violation of their text. It is dubious that such things actually do provide copyright protection. Personally, I have no problem with such content being included. I'd much, much rather see this than a short stub that explains that snakes have teeth that are called snake teeth, even if it perhaps better belongs in Wikisource. This excerpt is almost like a genuine encyclopedia article. But the source should be given, especially when it is an excellent and authoritative source. Put lots and lots of old material into Wikipedia when it is in public domain and still excellent material. But sources so used should be cited. And external links should be given to full web editions if they exist.
Flora and fauna of Guantanamo Bay is from Appendix B of a work appearing at Life in Guantanamo Bay. This might be public domain. As far as I can tell, it seems to have been originally something like an unofficial publication of the US navy or maybe a vanity publication by an officer (though an excellent one). But source again is not listed in the article. That's not right when you are taking it word for word.
Jallan 19:30, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yellow mustard rabbit

A now-blocked vandal, User:EDGE, moved User:Jongarrettuk to Yellow mustard rabbit, which he then proceeded to blank. I didn't realize that this was a move, and I deleted it as patent nonsense and blanked patent nonsense at that. When I discovered what EDGE had done, I restored Yellow mustard rabbit so I could move it back to User:Jongarrettuk, but the unblanked version is, for some reason, not available to restore to its proper place. Can somebody help me? RickK 20:27, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks to you and the others dealing with EDGE. I didn't have a userpage to begin with though - am a new wikipedian and haven't gotten round to writing it yet - so there's nothing to restore. Jongarrettuk 21:58, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh, good, thanks.  :) RickK 22:18, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

The purpose and uses of the Current events page

Please see Talk:Current events#too much analysis. A discussion has cropped up as to how much information is being included in Current events listings. RickK 18:24, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Possible Michael sighting

User:69.111.161.32 may be Michael editing anonymously. I already reverted a few dates that he incorrectly changed on album pages. These are articles that Michael has touched in the past. Rhobite 15:05, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Oh, not again. After everyone went through hell and high water to give this guy a second chance. I don't know anything about albums, but I'll be watching Special:Contributions/User:69.111.161.32 more closely today (assuming that's the only IP.) --Ardonik.talk() 15:12, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
See also User:205.188.117.7, an apparently run-of-the-mill vandal who blanked Iron Curtain, but a brief look at their contributions revealed this: [4] [5]. I have no idea whether these edits were correct or not, but a change of date by one year made by someone who has vandalised elsewhere makes me suspicious. I reverted these, but someone may wish to check for similar edits by this user. The IP is in AOL's range, making me even more suspicious. — Trilobite (Talk) 20:35, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Note that Michael has not edited with his probationary User:Mike Garcia account since early September. --Michael Snow 20:57, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Before writing this message, I have browsed through a few Wikipedia: series page to see what was already written on this topic ; I found nothing. More surprisingly, I found very little on the general theme of Wikipedia pollution by unfair use of its articles for Google ranking promotion. This does not seem a "hot" issue, but I fear it could become in a near future as long as Wikipedia gets better known and gets higher (together with its clones) on Google.

Indeed I became aware of the problem when googling http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awiki.riteme.site+asinah&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 to see what was already written about a (non GFDL compliant) Singapurese clone of WP. Look : they have linked about twenty of their pages from WP articles ; in each case, the page is not blatantly irrelevant, simply it is a poor page and indeed in reality a link farm.

Then I have kept looking for similar abuse. Watch out this interesting one (I link to a diff page, since I removed it) : http://wiki.riteme.site/w/wiki.phtml?title=Tourism&diff=5861245&oldid=5802398 An anonymous user adds two links ; the first one is irrelevant but not shocking ; the second one is blatant self-promotion. Probably naive from a good-faith editor (he also wrote a "real" sentence on a talk page), and not too dangerous (though the links remained more than one week with nobody noticing the problem).

Now, browse through the various links in the "Commercial travel sites" of Tourism. Some are indeed relevant, like http://www.letsgo.com/ . A few others are self-promotion of sites which are in no way nasty, but not remarkable enough to justify a link from a very general encyclopedy page, e.g. http://www.luggage-life.com/. Lastly and more annoyingly, some are simply there to help link farms sucking Google ranking, see http://www.asinah.net/ (the WP clone which made me conscious of the problem) or http://www.insidetraveltips.com/, still more blatant.

What should be done ? Nothing, hoping that I overestimate the danger and that this kind of parasiting can be contained by the editors as teenager vandalism is effectively contained ? Listing offender domaine names and forbidding external links towards them ? Adding a "nofollow" tag in WK pages, finding another way to have our articles archived ? Something else ? --French Tourist 12:48, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

We already, controversially, ban links to a number of locations where active link-farmers were hitting us. It's controversial because it causes problems when editing some real pages and because it's easy to work around it. Wikipedia is an effective device for artifically raising page rank, but is also an important source for Google of authoritative links. At this point, we pretty much hope that the usual wiki process will take care of such links (often, once such a user is noticed once, their other contributions will be checked and all their changes are then easy to revert.) Derrick Coetzee 23:13, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Random page experiment

Following on from Jallan's idea in Random page meanderings above, as well as earlier, simpler random page surveys, I have created a quick proposal/mockup/brainstorm of a large-scale random page experiment at User:TPK/Drafts/RPE. The gist of the proposal is that x randomly-selected articles (where x was proposed at 100, but that may be too many – or too few) are copied into (presumably my) User: space, or into some Wikipedia: space, and left in situ for a month or so. On the "clone" article's talk pages, there are a number of topics, such as Formatting, Length, Content, Spelling and Grammer, POV, et cetera, and users are invited to look at the clone article, then give it a score from 0 to 10 for each topic. During all this, the original pages will remain untouched, and can be edited as usual (although a link would be left on the talk page to the scoring page of the clone). Given enough time (and ratings), each article would be given a final "Wikiscore" from 0 to 10, which would rate how "perfect" the community perceives that article to be. This would give us some ideas about paradigm articles – the best and the worst – as well as giving us an idea of the state of WP's "average article". I don't know what else could be gained from the experience, or if it's really that useful at all. It's only a vague idea at this stage (and again I give credit to Jallan). Have a look at the draft, suggest what topics you would use for scoring, how the results might be used or collated, whether this is all a waste of time, how the articles might be selected other than randomly (prehaps some previous featured articles should be randomly selected and included to see how they score), and anything else, including whether this is all a waste of time. Thankyou for your time. T.P.K. 07:44, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I believe that's the use of the 'validate' function in 1.4 (see Testwiki) — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 14:16, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Skald

At the moment Skald leads to a disambiguation page, and the main meaning of skald is at Skald (poet). Since the other article in question is about a Norwegian publishing firm which is only a secondary meaning, I'd like to move Skald (poet) to Skald and have a note on the top of the article that there is a publishing firm using the name as well. This move should very uncontroversial since the basic and prestigious name for a viking poet is the reason why the firm has chosen the name. Keeping the meanings equal is publicity.--Wiglaf 07:30, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree completely. I guess an admin would have to move them... --Golbez 07:33, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
Moved it, you might want to solve the double redirects -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 07:46, 2004 Sep 19 (UTC)
Done and done. :D --Golbez 07:56, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
Great! You're fast! :D --Wiglaf 09:50, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Image touchup

File:AbsoluteValue.png

The image to the right needs a bit of touchup, since i do not have any image manipulation program ( or am able to install one, student machine ) would somebody mind:

  1. <- making this red where it currently is black.
  2. put that where the x = |x| text is now ( the current one is too raugh and un-anti-alised)

Thanks in advance. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 07:24, 2004 Sep 19 (UTC)

Done :) porge 10:59, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Gmail Invites

I currently have 6 Gmail invites, and I want to give 3 away to some Wikipedia members (mostly because half my friends have no clue what gmail is ;). Anyways, if you would like one...please post on my User talk page. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:57, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You might want to think about the gmail invite spooler just send your invites to gmail@isnoop.net and they will be made available to people that want them. [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 21:40, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

70.64.104.100 00:17, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Any reason why it has 0 invites currently available? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 02:07, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
the number fluctuates as people add new invites and people request them, that big graph shows the in/outs over time, if you want an invite you put your email in that box and it will send you one, when it gets some if it doesn't have any right away. [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 05:39, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I have three to give out, leave a note on my talk if you want one. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 06:25, 2004 Sep 19 (UTC)
I have six; send me an email if you want one. Thue | talk 08:33, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Has this gmail invite spooler worked for anyone else? I've made two requests already—one yesterday, and one a few minutes ago when about a dozen invites were supposedly available—and I still haven't received anything. Are we sure it isn't just an elaborate email harvester? --dreish 13:10, 2004 Sep 22 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Trivia quiz

At User_talk:Eequor, a Wikipedia:Trivia quiz was brought up. Any comments about having one?? 66.245.80.45 18:44, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You're too late. It's been done twice at the meet ups- 1, 2. →Raul654 18:51, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)
That doesn't necessarily exclude a more public quiz for the entire community. Also, many of the questions on those pages are very dated or very difficult. Perhaps a more organized quiz could have varying levels of difficulty. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 19:13, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Would a good choice be to start with easy ones and put difficult ones later?? 66.245.80.45 19:15, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think User:Quadell had one once. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 21:22, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It was at User:Quadell/Trivia Challenge. Angela. 22:34, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)
Hm... maybe some limits are needed to prevent a few people from dominating the quiz? Would "one answer per person per day" work better? --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 23:40, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fundraising drive

This is advance notice that a Fundraising drive will begin on Monday and the following message will be displayed across all wikis (it can be translated in MediaWiki:Sitenotice on non-English wikis).

Wikimedia Fundraising Drive. Help us raise $50,000. See our fundraising page for details.

If you would rather not see the message, please set #fundraising {display:none;} in your User:yourname/monobook.css page. Further details can be found at m:Fundraising site notice and m:Fundraising meeting, September 2004. The target is $50,000. Angela. 16:32, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

If deductions were tax-deductible this would probably help a lot. How goes the progress on achieving this legal status? Derrick Coetzee 17:42, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The forms have been filed for this, but the IRS can take up to six months to decide. However, it should be retroactive, so you may be able to reclaim tax later on donations you make now, assuming the status will be granted. See Deductibility of donations on the new Foundation site for details. Angela. 22:32, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

I recommend the http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia Cafe Press stuff. I got myself a T-shirt and got some positive remarks in public. Double bonus! ;-) Awolf002 18:06, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ugly Klingon InterWiki

Does anyone know what caused Klingon to be forced to polute the article text with their Interwiki on other Wikipediae? Aliter 13:11, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They're not forced to do any such thing. The idea was that Klingon articles would not be linked to from en. -- Tim Starling 14:10, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Then why does this link tlh:Sol Hovtay' show up in-text in all Wikipedia? Not linking from a specific Wikipedia I can understand. It would mean informing the programmers of most Interwiki-bots, but it would be that specific Wikipedia's choice. But that's not what happens.
What happens is that there is InterWiki for Klingon, but accross all Wikipediae it's not regarded as an other-language version of the article. That I don't understand, and I would like to know what's causing it. Aliter 14:29, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See [6] and associated posts. -- Tim Starling 14:53, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Klingon interwiki? Andrewa 03:40, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Can we fix this now? It seems stupid, and messes up pages to have the links at the bottom. Even Deutche Velle has a Klingon Language edition now anyway. Flapflap 16:30, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, is there any way to open up this discussion? It seems pretty ridiculous not to allow proper language linking. Intrigue 23:16, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Contributions into the public domain

How can I best release all my contributions to Wikipedia from any kind of copyright control or licensing restrictions? As I understand it, articles that I've started can be released into the public domain, even though subsequent versions after editing on Wikipedia will be (presumably) licensed under the GFDL. What about individual edits to GFDL articles — can the edit itself be released into the public domain, even though the resultant article is GFDL? Also, I've heard rumours that the idea of the public domain doesn't exist in Japan — is this true? (Public domain doesn't mention it). If this is the case, what can I do to make sure that my contributions are available for use with as few a restrictions as possible in Japan? — Matt 10:17, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You definitely can commit your individual edits to the public domain, and other Wikipedians have done this (see User:Eloquence for example). To commit to the public domain, I believe all you have to do is make an "overt act of relinquishment". Putting a notice on your user page would most likely qualify, at least for works which were already created in the past. http://creativecommons.org/license/publicdomain-2 provides a somewhat more formal way to do this. I've never used it so I can't really tell you what to expect. You may also want to look at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guide_to_the_CC_dual-license and/or talk to some of the users in that last category (public domain). anthony (see warning) 12:10, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the links! — Matt 18:29, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

13th century theologians list

If anyone feels so inclined and wants to create lots of new pages, here is an available database of 13th century theologians that is available in the PD:

http://home.sandiego.edu/~macy/index.html

Each theologian contains brief bio, works and bibliography. Nice resource that would fill out a lot of names for European Middle Ages history. I did not write it but the author just requests "Please give a reference to the Guide in any published work just as you would to any other source." .. which would go under the ==Sources== header.

That's ==References==, actually. The reference looks excellent, although info on each person is rather limited. It'll help fill out some stubs at least, in a lacking area. Derrick Coetzee 17:36, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sir Frank Williams

Would an admin be so kind as to move Frank Williams (Formula One) to Frank Williams, which was lately a disambig page of dubious value and is now a redirect to the F1 Frank Williams? (The other people on the disambig page were Frank Abagnale, the guy in Catch Me If You Can whose alias was Frank Williams, and a redlink to Frank Williams (actor), an actor in a British sitcom. I mentioned them at the top of the article.) Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 05:09, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Managed Delete

A new policy proposal is in the tweaking stages. Please take a look at http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Managed_Deletion for the details. Note that this is a modification of the Speedy Delete process only. If you disagree with the policy entirely, please wait for voting to cast your vote. If you can think of ways to improve the policy, please contribute constructive criticism on the Discussion page. The proposal is aimed primarily at administrators who perform speedy deletes, but all will no doubt have some interest in it. I anticipate voting beginning one week from today. Geogre 00:41, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC) I posted this in the Policy link off Village Pump, but I figured, since that's new, I'd post it here, too. Geogre 00:41, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I edited a page before I logged in

Is there some way to put that edit under my userId? Gold Dragon 19:12, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit. HTH —No-One Jones (m) 19:14, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks :) Gold Dragon 19:16, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What format?

What format do I use for screenshots, and would it be a bad idea to use Paint to convert to that format? --Sgeo | Talk 13:19, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

PNG is the recommended format for screenshots, and it would not be a bad idea to use Paint if you have Windows XP. I don't believe earlier versions could save PNG files. Rhobite 13:28, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC) edit: please don't edit my comments Rhobite 17:20, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I think it depends on what the screenshot consists of. If it is something like a text editor, PNG would probably be the preferred format. But if it was a photorealistic screenshot from an FPS, JPG would probably be a better format (for its better compression of photographic images).
I don't think Paint supports PNG, but it'd probably work for JPG images. Personally, I prefere Paint Shop Pro, but that's just me. There are probably several free utilities available that convert image formats. — Frecklefoot | Talk 13:51, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Paint does support .PNG in Windows XP. In any case, there are many graphic file converters out there. GIF is arguably okay. Whatever you do, do not use BMP! Derrick Coetzee 14:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I just uploaded Image:BabasChess.PNG which was converted with Paint on WinXP. --Sgeo | Talk 15:11, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

And I just recompressed it to knock a third off the file size. Ain't collaboration fun? -- Cyrius|✎ 15:23, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
And I just converted it to indexed color to knock another ~50% of the filesize off. PNGs can fairly often be indexed for big space savings. This is unfortunately something that pngcrush can't do at this time... -- Wapcaplet 22:58, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I have noticed that some programs are less than ideal for compressing PNG. Maybe Windows XP paint doesn't compress it at all. Rhobite 17:16, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
pngcrush -brute oldfile.png newfile.png does a better job than anything else I can think of, image editor or otherwise. It's cross-platform, too. --Ardonik.talk() 17:27, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
pngcrush is awesome! I have a list of .pngs extracted from a recent database dump. I should have a bot go through and pngcrush all the ones that gain significantly from it. Potentially this could be done as part of the upload for new images. Derrick Coetzee 18:05, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

ITToolbox spam

Anonymous users are spamming links to a site called ittoolbox.com, which is basically a link/ad farm for IT articles. Could an admin please revert contributions by User:66.208.231.42? User:67.109.36.158 has also spammed a couple of links. Rhobite 13:04, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

I'm working on him, but he's pretty persistent. He's started adding the link back to articles to which it has already been removed, which probably means he knows the link is spam and he doesn't care. He has already been told on his talk page. I'll add to WP:VIP. -- Chuq 13:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Standing and nomination

The above thread about ballot-stuffing got me thinking:

For September tenth, on redirects for deletion, an anonymous contributer listed two of three of the redirects for deletion that day. ¿Should people with no standing to vote, be allowed to nominate? It seems like a trouble-making troll with a floating IP could really wreck havoc by randomly nominating all sorts of things to all sorts of things.

I must confess that I participate in the discussion for the redirect male genital mutilation. I feel that either both male genital mutilation and female genital mutilation or neither both male genital mutilation and female genital mutilation and either both should stay or leave. I believe that both should stay. Keeping one while deleting the other is sexist. In other words, I believe that, now, after disclosing my involvement, I should abstain from the debate about anonymous contributers nominating things to things.

Ŭalabio 05:48, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)

I believe it's been the longstanding policy on the VFD to ignore anon votes. I don't think RFD should be any different in that respect. →Raul654 05:50, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Since I am a partisan, I shall not debate but merely clarify:

An Anonymous Contributer Nominated Several Of The Redirects For Deletion. Someone with no standing to vote started a vote.

Ŭalabio 06:05, 2004 Sep 17 (UTC)

Some time ago I raised exactly this issue on Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion, that discussion is now archived but the rough consensus was that anons have every right to list on VfD, but not to vote. I was the dissenting voice, IMO if you can't vote you shouldn't list either. I guess we'd want the same policy on RfD, etc.. It sounds like there might be more to say on this. In the interests of not reinventing the wheel, should I try to find the original discussion? Andrewa 11:29, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard the term "standing [to vote]" being used in the way, but I see if there's consensus, there's consensus, regardless of whether or not the nominator was an anon. I could see the appropriateness of deleting a nomination made by an anon, if no one agrees with it, but once an eligible voter agrees that voter could be considered the nominator if you really care about such issues. anthony (see warning) 12:38, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See my comment in previous section re: Peter Weibel. -- Jmabel 22:02, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

The right to propose something and the right to vote on it aren't necessarily coupled. The only question to ask is whether dissallowing anons list pages on VfD and RfD brings more good or harm. Now, anybody who wants to disrupt VfD and RfD could get around a rule like that it just by register a user name. OTOH, throwing policy at well meaning newbies and telling them that their attempts at contribution are worthless might lose us some potentially good editors. I see no justification to prevent anons from listing pages on VfD and RfD. Zocky 02:29, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ballot-Stuffing

I was involved in a vote where everyone on both sides encourage friends to join the vote by registering just for voting. It was ugly. I am not proud of it. I suggest that only people registered before a vote, can vote on an issue. If such a policy came up for vote, I would encourage all of my friends to register, after the vote began, just to vote "Yes" on not letting people vote on issues who were not registered before the pole began.  ;-)

P.S.

So that who I am will not influence your judgment, I logged out before writing this. If you feel that who I am truly is germane, the logs will reveal that this IP was used by a user who logged out just before posting this and then logged back in on the same IP after posting this.

Anonymous Coward

Wouldn't this be impossible to check and/or eat up far too much server power? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 05:05, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
A simple check of the user registration timestamp against the time the vote was posted is just integer subtraction, but the wiki style of putting an issue to vote by editing the page means that a vote is just text on a page, which the software doesn't treat as special. It probably wouldn't be hard to make votes special and allow this kind of checking if someone wanted that. -- Zwilson 16:55, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wow, I whole heartedly agree with that... a requirement of Wikipedia voting should be registration prior to the start of the vote. It sounds like a really good idea to me. (The sock puppets and the people who suddenly show up out of nowhere only for the vote are a serious problem). Since I am also a coward, I will only sign with an x. 05:18, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In previous cases where this has happened (the naming policy poll comes to mind), the votes of brand-new users were moved to their own section and (more or less) ignored as obvious ballot stuffing. →Raul654 05:49, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
  • That's some previous cases, Raul: sometimes it's done that way and sometimes it isn't. A notable case of ballot-stuffing on VfD in August also comes to mind, where the admin counted new-minted voters just the same as established users (apparently so; when his count was challenged he didn't choose to comment on this aspect of it) and declared himself forced to keep the article. I think your example and mine, placed side by side, illustrate completely unacceptable variation in sysop vote counting practice, and that's why we need a specific rule. Bishonen 02:37, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
P. S., adding figures: there was a lot of interest and strong feelings in this VfD case. By my count 50 pre-existing users voted: 15 to Keep and 35 to Delete. Don't remember exactly how many new-created accounts there were — can't face spending any more time in the tangle of that record — but those voted overwhelmingly to Keep. Bishonen 08:27, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

OK, right. But here's what I like about it: when the brand-new voters show up, all that can currently be said to them is "the admins are not amused", where as with a rule in place, one can actually say "your vote is in violation of policy... now go away", (or something with a little more WikiLove). func(talk) 19:49, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, you can do what we did before - make a section called ballot stuffing (or something with more wikilove) and move their votes there (don't delete them). →Raul654 19:52, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
Agreed. Better to have an unequivocal policy than leave the determination to whichever sysop counts the votes. That's too open to mistakes, or abuse. -- orthogonal 20:03, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Occasionally comments from new or unregistered users can be very useful (as was the case recently on Peter Weibel). It's their votes that don't count. -- Jmabel 22:01, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

I kind of like the Anonymous Coward's recommendation: Your account must have been created before the deliberation began to count. That won't touch the long standing sock puppets, of course. Geogre 00:45, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've always interpreted Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus to mean the same thing as this suggestion, but it would certainly be nice to have it stated more formally somewhere, and to be clear that it applies to all polls that are closed to IPs. Not only should voters have created their account before the poll began, but they should have made some good edits with that account as well. (I don't know that we want to get into the minutiae of defining "some", but I'm okay with it being a small number.) —Triskaideka 22:04, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have to reiterate it: IP's and nonce registrations cannot be counted in a vote. When I said that the "exist before opening of debate" won't stop sock-puppets, I meant that some regular Wikipedians have more than one account. The people who have done this know how hard it is for them to be caught. In fact, it's very difficult to catch them, and I'm a little tired of our pretending that it isn't. To me, the multiple accounts per Wikipedian is a really wretched phenomenon. "Wikipedia, where all animals are equal, and some are more equal than others." I'm going to look at the article Bishonen links to and see if it should have been deleted or not. I understand when people get afraid to step into really hot debates, but consensus must be our only rule. Consensus of users, that is, and not consensus of the interested. Geogre 00:01, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Prison project

I am a warden at the maximum security Leavenworth Penitentiary and am involved in working with inmates on a range of education programs including basic literacy, GED, parenting programs and trying to offer opportunities for inmates who want to improve themselves to collaborate on constructive and educational projects. I found your site and was excited to see an article on our prison (United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth).

I would like to set a project for some of the more advanced inmates working on an information technology class (mostly lifers with a history of violent crime) to expose them to real-world, collaborative writing. I feel this might help them to interact more constructively.

I am suggesting to them to read about the site and the rules, and contribute to asrticles that they have experience with. Please let me know if there are any specific rules on this. Thank you, L. John

This sounds like a very exciting plan! I think the closest "rules" we have are at Wikipedia:School and university projects. The discussion on this page, #Good/bad idea to require a class to submit articles as a writing assignment?, has some further pointers about good practice. If you bear in mind that articles should be on "encyclopedic" topics, and written from a neutral point of view, you shouldn't go far wrong. AlexG 20:38, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Ironic: m:wikipedians with criminal records. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 20:39, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hmmm, will we be seeing any articles on 'How to make a leathal weapon with a toothbrush and a razor blade'? I'm being silly of course. That would belong in Wikibooks :-P Darksun 22:05, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In my opinion, this will blow every school project in the history of the Wikipedia, past or future, straight out of the water. It sounds like an awesome idea. --Ardonik.talk() 23:24, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
This sounds good to me -- so good that I have to wonder if it's for real. L. John, if you happen actually to be the warden at Leavenworth, one change I'd make to your idea is that inmates aren't limited to "articles that they have experience with". Quite a few articles have been written by people who knew nothing about the subject until they started researching it. Another issue to consider is that some Wikipedians have some anger management issues themselves. How will the inmate-editor react when someone writes "How did you get to be such a complete moron?" Such things shouldn't happen but, alas, they do. JamesMLane 00:02, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
How Things Can Be Misconstrued 1.01. James, L.John didn't say he was the warden ):-. No matter. His aim to involve inmates in a collaborative task can only benefit them, and us. You are correct that they should not be limited to only their own experiences, and hey, regarding anger managament, maybe they can drop a few valuable tips to some wikipedians too..Moriori 03:20, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)
Let's assume good faith. It's an exciting idea IMO. But James makes two very important points. Firstly, encourage the guys to contribute about things that they know about or are prepared to learn about. This could be a very valuable experience. Secondly, the anger management is certainly something to consider. Again, it could be a very valuable experience both for the guys and for the rest of us. I've been a bit disappointed at the trend towards needless agro in some discussions lately, and even more disappointed that this agro draws so little constructive criticism. Sometimes it degenerates to just plain bullying. Perhaps if some of our more volatile contributors knew that some of their fellow Wikipedians were doing time in maximum, but not which ones and what for and when they'd be out, there would be a little cooling off. I think that would be good. And I'm not joking. Andrewa 00:43, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Sort of like Wikipedia's own version of a concealed weapons law?  :-) —Mike 03:39, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
I think it is a great idea. I can't see any particular problems. Note that Wikipedia does not just need authors, it also needs editing, formatting, the addition of metric units, maintenance and translating. So there are many ways of making a positive contribution. I think the best way to find if it works well is to try it. Bobblewik  (talk) 15:40, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some of my best friends are felons. No joke. I'd be much more worried if we were adding a group of 20 prison guards to the pool than 20 incarcerated felons. Again, no joke. -- Jmabel 21:54, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

I, too, think this is a great idea. My only concerns are:
  1. In a virtual (but very real) sense, you're giving these inmates parole. Online crimes (death threats, libel, ...) are real crimes. OTOH, it is generally harder to commit felonies online, and I can't imagine inmates being quick to violate their virtual paroles. I'm all for parole, but keep a close eye (at least initially, with random spot checks later on), realizing that this is, in fact, a form of parole.
  2. Side issue: should all inmates be forced to identify themselves as Leavenworth inmates, either on their user pages or on m:Wikipedians with criminal records, or should this remain voluntary? This is, of course, a decision to be made by the warden and/or a parole board. (My opinion: make it voluntary, but keep an eye out for abuses.)
  3. A lesser concern: bad apple syndrome. If one inmate wants to ruin it for the rest of his peers, he can act like an ass in general until the IP is hard-banned. I'm assuming, of course, that you'd be going through a router and that inmates would have the opportunity and the inclination to act maliciously. Hopefully I'm wrong on at least one of those counts.
• Benc • 22:32, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Regards online parole, I'm sure the web access of inmates would be strictly monitored, just as with real parole, where a parole officer would frequently check up on the parole-e (or is that just Law & Order? :) ). I strongly think that disclosure of the person's prisoner status should be entirely voluntary. Although we'd like for it not to happen, discrimination exists everywhere. They may not be treated fairly, or be allowed to contribute fully, if they were forced to broadcast they're current living arrangements. Thirdly, regards blocking, prehaps the owner of the IP in question should be known to someone or other, who could make sure it isn't banned. Whoever is monitoring the inmates at the other end would have to be in charge of removing the person's access to WP if they vandalise it, in which case it would be safe to continue to allow the IP access for all the rest. TPK 09:37, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What Should I do with the book I wrote?

A couple of ten years ago, I wrote a book, Codeword Dictionary. No need to ask, it was a real book, they paid me, I did not pay them.

Anyway, I have the copyright and was wondering what I should do with it, now that the Dead Tree edition is out of print and will probably not inspire a second edition.

The book was a dictionary of military operations names. I have used the files to work on the 'pedia's List of operations and projects (military and non-military) page, but we are talking thousands of entries here.

So what should I do? My options include:

    • Nothing
    • Make about a thousand entries to the page mentioned above.
    • Enter the whole thing as a WikiBook.
    • Something else.

Your thoughts, please.[[PaulinSaudi 11:58, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)]]

If you want to include it there, Wikibooks sounds like the most reasonable place to me. In the format you describe, it sounds more like a complete reference work than an encyclopedia article, so it would be appropriate for Wikibooks. As a complete text, it's probably beyond the scope of Wikipedia itself, though of course pieces of individual information can be added to individual articles as you've been doing. --Michael Snow 15:48, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If you put it in Wikibooks, perhaps others can pull out the parts that are useful into individual Wikipedia entries, saving you the work. I might do a few. – Quadell (talk) (quiz)[[]] 16:08, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Another option might be to put it all into user subpages. Wikibooks seems an uncomfortable match to me, and Wikisource is out according to their current policy. I think you're doing the right thing raising it here for discussion. It's an excellent offer, and might also be a significant precedent.
How do you feel about breaking it into sensible 32k chunks and putting them all up as user subpages? Wikilinks to these from articles would be inappropriate, but wikilinks from talk pages would make the material available to other Wikipedia editors. It seems to me that's exactly the sort of thing the user namespace is here for.
That's my best initial thought. But interested in other views. Andrewa 16:19, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I am unclear on what breaking it into userspace article entails. Can you point me to an example? Would a person looking at The War in Italy still find a link to Operation Soandso? We could chop it into a million little bits, each entry is a stand-alone. Still, giving it to WikiBook seems to be the low-work option. I am leaving in a few days for vacation. I will do nothing until Ramadan, when I return. [[PaulinSaudi 16:58, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)]]
I assume it's alphabetical, so the first thing would probably be to break it into 27 or 28 pages, one for each initial letter, plus one for an index and one for non-alphabetic initial characters if needed. This is just to get the page size down. You might want then to break some of the larger pages down further, say BAA-BON and BOO-BZZ instead of B, for example, if this split cuts it roughly in half. That's where the index becomes important. This shouldn't be too much work.
So far as the War in Italy goes, at least the more prominent operations and perhaps even all of them would be mentioned, bolded, in the text of a larger article, and these could have redirects or disambiguations pointing to them. This is a lot of work obviously, but putting the material in the user namespace means that other editors can do some of it. Andrewa 12:12, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It would be good to see it, then we could see whether having thousands of articles on it would be good. My gut feeling is that yes, it could be. Intrigue 18:44, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Independently of whatever you may decide to do vis-a-vis Wikibooks, have you considered giving it to Project Gutenberg? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 18:52, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree it's a generous offer, and thank you. One concern I have is whether it might be a little too generous. Even though you have the copyright, and could presumably prevent the publisher from re-issuing the book without cutting a deal with you, the contract might give the publisher some rights. At a minimum, it might restrain you from taking any action that kills the market for a possible reprint, by giving the same text away for free. Before you elect any of the options discussed here, you should probably speak with your publisher and/or your lawyer. JamesMLane 01:39, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Random page meanderings

I've just done a quick 50-page survey using the random page link. The results are at User:TPK/Random. I have to say they're not very encouraging... though I'll do a larger survey eventually of course, (50 pages doesn't give a proper indication of WP as a whole), but the numbers I got here still aren't that great. Essentially, half of the 50 pages were stubs or sub-stubs (and half of those again lacked {{stub}} or {{substub}}), 2/3 lacked at least one category, only 3 had a see also section, only 16 had any external links, only 6 had an image or diagram... though 44 were properly wikified, if that's any consolation. Not that we didn't already know, but these few numbers show how far WP has to go. Also, for the record, the majority of the articles were either biographical or 'other'.

I know some other people have done surveys like this, so are there any other results to share? Also, if there are other things I should be looking for in my next random meander, do tell.

TPK 22:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC) Talk

Some comments:
Were all the so-called stubs really stubs? I personally find it annoying and counter-productive when stub templates are placed on perfectly good short articles. Yes, many short articles could be expanded, but many don't especially need it compared to many longer articles which are more incomplete in respect to what they ought to cover. A short article is often quite adequate as is, in which case absence of a stub template is a good thing. As to a "see also" section, that's often not necessary either if there are well-chosen links within the article. External links are also not needed for many articles. Pictures and diagrams are nice, but not as important as basic accuracy which you, understandably, don't get into.
Agree that the stub notice is often wrongly added to an article just because it is short. This makes the notice far less useful than it would otherwise be. Andrewa 07:13, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well, not being able to tell immediately whether a given article could have been longer or not, I took any short article (i.e. less than one paragraph) as a stub. I agree that some articles simply can't be made very long, but I tend to think that a single paragraph can always be expanded in some way or another. Also, as no-one can immediately tell if an article is expandable (unless it happens to be a topic they know about), a stub needs to be brought to the attention of others, and if it is as long as it's going to get, then someone who knows can remove the tag. (Problem being someone else might replace it - prehaps this is a deeper problem with the whole stub/article length subject). External links - given the nebulousness of the web, there's bound to be at least one decent link for practically ever article, so I believe that xlinks should be more common than they are; see-alsos though, might not be neccessary, as you said if there are good internal links, as well as categories. TPK 10:34, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
There are more short articles, whether marked stub or not, than anyone can deal with in any reasonable time. And they keep increasing. Random marking of some of these for expansion helps no-one. My experience is that articles marked for expansion are in fact often better served not by expansion but by having content merged with another article and being changed into redirects. Or just left alone. But someone who knows nothing about the topic ignorantly stamps them with the information that they need expansion because it is easy to do. Yet articles unmarked are just as likely on the average to need expansion as articles marked, or just as unlikely. Indiscriminate labelling of short articles by editors who know nothing about the topics of the articles has destroyed any usefulness that stub marking might have had. And I disagree that it is more necessary to bring the fact that an article is short to people's attention than any other supposed defect in an article. Anyone can see that an article is short. Shortness doesn't need to be labeled. But because it is so easy to see, it is shortness that is labeled, by labelling the article as a stub for expansion, whether an article especially needs expansion or not. And far more serious defects are not noticed at all. Stub labelling as implimented in Wikipedia is, in my opinion, more harmful than good.
You got me thinking - yes, the way stubs are marked isn't really that useful in that an article might never be expandable (though I still think most stubs could be expanded by a sentence here or there, but some articles will just always hover at the stub limit). The first problem is that everyone has a different idea of how long a "stub" is: either it's 1 paragraph or less, or 2 or less, or anything under 300 words, or 200, or 100, or a certain number of lines or sentences or an exact number of characters (exluding spaces and punctuation) if you're especially anally-retentive. Anyway, stubs are subjective. That's Problem 1 with the current stub system. Secondly, as some articles might never expand, the problem of stubs is more of "is the article structually, informatively, content-wise, complete" (or near-to), rather than "is the article longer than xyz characters". Problem 2. So for stubs to be useful, we need to move away from counting characters, and move towards finding an objective way to tell if an article is hopelessly short for it's subject, or if it's as long as it's going to get. That's nigh on impossible to do though. Problem 3. Prehaps the stub system is useful in that it brings short articles to the attention of others, who might be able to expand them. But if they can't be expanded, they will remain as a perpetual stub, even if they're effectively complete. Problem the Fourth. Prehaps the stub system, for that reason and those above, needs to be completely overhauled. Either way, it needs to be looked at more closely, rather than being taken for granted. TPK 22:58, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I've also created and expanded many articles with no external links. The links were all in related articles. Or the subject was not covered decently on the web in a form that fitted a distinct link or not decently covered at all on the web. For example, in an article about a Greek mythological figure, one should provide sources, many of which are found on the web. But normally in such an article the first mention of a particular source is also an internal link to another Wikipedia article about the source itself. It is the Wikipedia article about the source that contains the external links to sites on the webs where those sources can be found. The article on the mythological figure is likely to contain no external links at all. Maintaining a set of external links that are balanced and valid is difficult enough without attempting needlessly to maintain many of the same links in forty or fifty different articles. If a new translation of the Aeneid appears on the web or a site that once had such a translation has vanished, one doesn't want to have to update thirty or forty articles to update Wikipedia. One fix in one article should be sufficient.
Jallan 20:55, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
OK, well external links don't need to be duplicated across a number of crosslinked articles, but what I would like to see is xlinks placed on standalone articles - pages that don't link through a see-also to another page that does contain the relevant xlink(s). But where a page is a standalone, I think more of them ought to have some link or another. Yes, a lot of topics will be so obscure the only info on the web will be: A) imaginary, B) a copy of what's already on the page in question, or C) otherwise worthless. But I still think there are a lot of articles that could benefit from external linking - WP isn't and never will be a one-stop shop for information on every topic. More xlinks are needed, in some places, but not all, I'll give you that. TPK 22:58, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I am in total agreement. My argument was really against the criteria being used to judge the 50 articles in question, that they weren't sufficient. There seemed to be an assumption that lack of a stub template on a short article was bad. Not always, especially considering the indiscriminate labelling of articles as stubs that need explansion. There seemed to be an assumption that lack of external references was a defect. That is not always true. A better experiement might be for someone to randomly select 100 articles and put them on a special page for comment. Not fixup. The copies would be protected during the length of the experiment. (The actual articles, could still be fixed up or changed according to normal Wikipedia procedure.) After comments had been made on the copies, perhaps after two weeks, people could rate the articles in different ways, e.g. from 1 to 10 for accuracy, from 1 to 10 for formatting, from 1 to 10 for attaining NPOV, from 1 to 10 for excellence of the writing, from 1 to 10 for use of links and so forth. Then we might get a better true picture of how Wikipedia rates. I'd rather have in Wikipedia, for example, 100 short stubs needing expansion that are accurate and well written and balanced as they stand than 100 long articles that are untrustworthy in terms of factual accuracy or POV, which are more serious but less easily spotted flaws than simply being brief. Jallan 14:07, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I went through about 50 random articles myself yesterday and found one obvious copyvio that has been hanging around since January 2003 though edited 12 times since, one speedy deletion candidate (a short article about a high school supposedly founded last year with a list of about five notable people who had attended it: obvious joke vanity), and a badly disguised advertisment article that I placed on VfD.
Jallan 02:52, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  1. Categories are new enough that the lack of them should be no surprise at all.
  2. So did you add stub labels to the previously unmarked stubs? -- Jmabel 03:39, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I did say the numbers show how far WP has to go, not that it was a suprise. As for editing, I only made changes to pages that absolutely needed them. I didn't add stub tags, no. TPK 10:34, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As an aside, how many pages do most people think would be enough for a properly representative survey? I think 50 was too few; prehaps 100? More? TPK 10:34, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It depends on what margin of error you are willing to accept. A sample size of 50 will give about +/- 14%. 100 is +/- 10%. 500 at +/- 4% would be good, but would take a long time. It should be easy enough to calculate the number of tagged stubs as a % of total articles. Problem is that not all tagged stubs are stubs and not all genuine stubs are tagged. Filiocht 10:50, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Some time ago I did a 250 page sample: User:Pjacobi/Random. I'd suggest someone using a bot a having a local copy would produce a list 500 or 1000 random page titles, perhaps with some info (Categories?) already extracted. This sample can be devided betwen collaborators and a previously agreed on breakdown be done. Pjacobi 14:01, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think it would be useful to have statistics about the 'average' Wikipedia article. For example, how many links does it contain? What is the proportion of live links to non-existent links that it contains? For the statistically minded, I think it would be useful to know the 5th, 50th and 95th percentile values in each case. On the specific point of stubs, I hope that you have all seen the topbanana reports:
Bobblewik  (talk) 14:39, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Yes, seeing some percentiles or better a cumulative graph on some measures would be a very enlightening information. My favorite ones are number of edits and time since last non-minor edit. The weekly stats give about 14 (?) edits per artcle but I fear this average is composed of some articles with 300 edits and a large number of articles with less than five edits. -- Pjacobi 20:24, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Invariant Sections, etc

note: To keep things simple, we don't use Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts, or Back-Cover Texts

er, what are invariant sections, front-cover texts and back cover texts? Dunc_Harris|☺ 18:57, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Stuff the GFDL talks about. -- orthogonal 18:59, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
They come from book/journal publishing. Sections of a journal that are the same in every issue (editorial board, instructions to authors, that sort of thing) and the text on inside and outside of the front and back cover. Filiocht 07:58, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some pages disappeared.

The archives linked at Talk:People's Republic of China (except for one) have vanished. Talk: China (Archive 1), Talk: China (Archive 2), Talk: China (Archive 3), Talk: China (Archive 4) turn up red. Where did the text go? --Jiang 04:50, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

They may still be there, it's just that for some reason they got a leading space in the page title. Not quite sure how to fix this. cur_id of the pages in the database: 215128, 215431, 215831, 229086. -- User:Docu
I think it's possible for someone with shell access to the server to move problem titles like this with a manual SQL command. If somebody does, I guess they should really be at Talk:China/Archive 1 etc. - IMSoP 16:47, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Official Wikipedia search box?

Does Wikipedia offer an official toolbar that people can to search for an article from another site (along the lines of the Google Free web search or the Dictionary.com searchbox)?

Acegikmo1 23:36, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, you may use Firefox. Next to Firefox's address bar, there is a customizable search bar that lets you add search engines. You can add Wikipedia too. -- Etz Haim 00:38, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Given that Wikipedia often disables full-text search to keep the servers running, a toolbar search interface to Wikipedia isn't quite as useful as it could be. :-/ Good idea, though. And thanks for the Firefox tip; I'll have to try it out. • Benc • 01:02, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
One option is to add a bookmark in Mozilla (likely works in Firefox as well) to http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s&go=Go and put w in the keyword field of the bookmark property (Bookmarks->Manage Bookmarks...). To go to an article in Wikipedia, type w Article Name in the address box of Mozilla to go directly to that article. Replace fulltext=Search instead of go=Go in the bookmark URL to do full text searching, if available. Al guy 01:27, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
I think you don't want a search bar but HTML for a search box you can place on your own website. I don't know of any "standard" box, but here's one I just whipped up (just for you):
    <form name="searchform"
          action="http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Search"
          id="searchform">
    <table bgcolor=#cccccc>
       <tr><td><a href="http://wiki.riteme.site">Wikipedia</a> search:<br /></td></tr>
       <tr><td><input accesskey="f"  type="text"   name="search"   id="searchInput" /><br /></tr></td>
       <tr><td><center><input value="Go"     type="submit" name="go"       class="searchButton" />  
       <input value="Search" type="submit" name="fulltext" class="searchButton" /></center></td></tr>
    </table>
    </form>
Perhaps others will have use for it as well. Derrick Coetzee 02:50, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This page is 200kb

As a solution to this page regularly being 200kb or more, I propose a trial of splitting the pump into different areas. The five proposed sections are at Wikipedia:Village pump sections. If people want to still post here, they can, but they find it easier to find replies to their questions on a more focused page. Please put replies on the proposals section of the village pump. Thanks. Angela. 22:46, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Problem pictures

Certain articles contain pictures that are causing problems. These pictures not only wont load, but also stop all other pictures on other pages from loading after the problem picture has failed to load.

There is one on Earth. (The second picture down I think). Now I have gone there and I can't load any pictures (even outside of Wikipedia). If I reboot I will be able to again. Bensaccount 19:59, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • I am not having the same problem. What's your browser and connection? (Mine's Mozilla 1.7.2 on Win2K on an SDSL line behind a NAT/firewall.) - jredmond 20:10, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Maybe a browser problem? I've never experienced anything like this (Firething), though I occasionally encounter an invisible image, or one that won't display (usually just a missing thumbnail); the Earth page all loads fine for me. -- Wapcaplet 20:15, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • That page is fine for me as well. Have you changed anything in your browser settings that could have caused it? Have you tried using a different browser? If it's an ongoing problem, please report it at MediaZilla:. Angela. 21:54, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
  • I have a (unfortunately very vague) recollection of someone somewhere (I think here) stating some versions of MS-IE have a bug related to trying to display multiple JPEGs that sounded very similar to what you are describing. It also may be related to this[7]. Either way, I believe the answer is to update IE to the latest version (for the security fixes, if nothing else), and/or switch to one of the solid IE alternatives, such as Opera or Mozilla. I am able to more or less duplicate the problem on an NT box using IE 5.0, but don't have any problems with more up-to-date configs or alternate browsers. Niteowlneils 23:53, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The Encylopedia that Slashdot Built Awards

A periodic award given to pairs of articles that typify this acusation. This month we have two art related articles:

  1. . Mona Lisa (often described as the most famous work in art history) - our article is 2255 words (excluding links) with two pictures.
  2. . OS-tan a (small internet phenomenon on Futaba Channel) we give 2706 words and 19 pictures. Admitedly, this article describes a number of individual works.

This is a Slashdot Ratio of 1.2, not a startlingly high ratio, but an interesting reflection on our art history coverage! Mark Richards 17:51, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Mark, could it be that some art pages suffer because some wikipedians are being overly cautious? I pondered adding a second pic to Michelangelo's David, because the current illustration does not illustrate scale/proportion, although it is a truly superb photo. I have a pic I took myself that does illustrate the very large scale of the work, because there are people in it, but it's of slightly lower quality. Be(ing) Bold around here lately has caused little except hassles, so I decided to give it a miss. I can just imagine having to justify having two similar-ish pics in the same article, or, to justify using only my photo because it is the better illustration. Oh my. Moriori 21:12, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Please, I think you should be bold on this! I think a famous artwork like that could do with two pictures! Mark Richards 21:29, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

MOD PARENT UP. (Just kidding.) Seriously, I agree that we need more info in our Mona Lisa article. However, Moriori has some very good points. To expand on them, from my POV: First, legally acquiring images for GFDL use is often a difficult task, especially for works of art. Second, Mona Lisa is a developing article — it's grown by 6kb (from 11kb) just the past three weeks [8]! If you want an unbiased selection, pick articles that don't have dozens of edits within the past few weeks. Third, we will never need 19 different pictures of the Mona Lisa. That would be redundantly redundant.
In conclusion: the "text-to-pictures" ratio is an invalid metric for judging how "Slashdotty" the Wikipedia is, especially for art. (Disclaimer: I'm among the contributors to the Mona Lisa article, so take that for what you will.) Okay, I've spent enough time defending our articles; I'm off to resume actually improving them. :-) • Benc • 02:12, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I must confess that when I read "Mona Lisa...2255 words (excluding links) with two pictures," my thought was "wow! what's the second picture!?" And upon checking, I was most amused. I suggest that anyone who hasn't looked at the Mona Lisa article do so now.
p.s. NAACP is still wending its way through the Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week process after being nominated for a previous "Encylopedia that Slashdot Built" award. —Stormie 03:12, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
My first reaction was 'Surely you can't find more than one relevant picture for the Mona Lisa'. However, on further thought you probably could do more. Here are some ideas;
  • A photograph showing the tight knot of tourists standing in front on the painting trying to squint through the glass - also showing painting in gallery context
  • An oblique photograph of the frame illustrating the tripple layered bullet-proof glass
  • A close up showing surface crakling of the paint
  • A detail showing the painting techniques, such as sfumato
  • A photograph of the back showing the condition of the wood and any other identifying marks
  • A shot of one of the towns where the painting was stored during WW I and WW II
  • Marcel Duchamp's corrupted version, L. H. O. O. Q.
  • A historical photograph showing the acid damage in 1956, or its restoration
  • A historical photograph showing the painting on tour or being transported
  • A historical photograph of Vincenzo Perugia, who once stole the painting
  • One of the X-rays of the painting showing the underpainting (another X-ray was being taken this year).
  • The merchandising shot could be replaced with a photo showing a wider range of merchandise
Of course the real problem, as User:Benc says, is that many of these picture would be very difficult to obtain under GFDL. I'm not sure what the current situation in the Louvre is, but many galleries don't allow photography. It is also worth noting that few of the pictures in the OS-tan article have source, attribution or licensing information. -- Solipsist
Great ideas! I'm copying this entire discussion to Talk:Mona Lisa/Slashdot. • Benc • 22:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Collation

My choices would be collation and alphabetical order, which have a ratio of 8.2 : 1.

  • Collation is 10,322 bytes
  • Alphabetical order is 1,256 bytes

Collation primarily discusses the topic as it pertains to computer science. While collation is well-known in computer science, it predates the field by several centuries, and is more commonly known as "alphabetical order". Though a stub, Alphabetical order more directly describes what alphabetization actually is, whereas collation is long, rambling, and sometimes cryptic. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 21:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Million-article press release distribution

For everyone who is planning to help distribute the press release, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has asked that we delay the official announcement until Monday, September 20. This will allow us to work on translating the Foundation's website into other languages, to take advantage of the publicity.

In the meantime, please plan ahead in terms of where you want to send the press release. This would be a good time to start contacting media organizations so that you can determine the right contact person to send the press release to. --Michael Snow 04:37, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure under which category to request an article

I would like to request an article about Jasper Holmes but can't decide which heading to put him under on the request page. Just before the WW11 Battle of Midway, the US had no cryptographic way of determining Japan's code name for Midway. They had cracked Japan's JN-25 code and knew the target was AF, but didn't know where AF was located. Holmes, a young US naval officer, very cunningly tricked the Japanese into revealing that AF was Midway. Anyone got a suggestion on what category to use? (When I say category I don't mean category. Moriori 22:09, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

When did World War 11 occur? ;-) func(talk) 16:54, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
History I guess...but you seem to know enough about him to write an article yourself (or at least a stub). Adam Bishop 00:11, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I guess you're right. Stub it is. Cheers. Moriori 00:18, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
This information, including the offcer's name, is already at Battle of Midway#US Intelligence, I suppose you are aware of that. Andrewa 12:19, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Of course. But if any codebreaker deserves his own page, it is Holmes. His lateral thinking did much to win the naval war in the Pacific. I'm looking for material. E-mailed the US Navy yesterday, but no reply yet. Cheers. Moriori 20:27, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Category help

I've got a question with categories. We have Category:Montreal Expo players, but we also have Category:Los Angeles Dodgers players. Since the teams themselves are almost always referred to in a plural form (i.e. Montreal Expos) shouldn't the teams, when named in category, reflect this? It seems very inconsistent. Anybody want to take a stab? Rhymeless 05:31, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would go for Montreal Expos rather than Montreal Expo. Looking around the web references are almost entirely to Expos rather than Expo. I find it easier to think about a name such as 'Anaheim Angels'. In this case the single form would be 'Anaheim Angel Players' which seems to suggest there is a single angel. Angels feels more like a club, which is mainly a collection of players. I would though definitely prefer a single standard rather than inconsistency. MarkS 12:41, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Copyrighted Art

Which tag is preferable for images of copyrighted works of visual art? I'm not very good with legalese, so I would also like a very plain explanation of what would be involved in using such a license? I would also like to know if there are any special stipulations for photographs of sculptures and buildings? Justin Foote 01:34, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

James and I wrote the Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ to give people a basic understanding of copyright law. It's a bit confusing in this case -- basically, pictures of 2D works old enough to be in the public domain (created before 1922) are also public domain, regardless of when the picture was taken (because a picture of a public domain picture is still public domain, according to the Bridgeman case). However, for 3d objects such as statues, taking a picture (which involves deciding what angle, among other things) involves creative input. This creative input is large enough to warrant a new copyright. Thus, picture of 3D objects are copyrighted. →Raul654 03:06, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
First thing to say is that if the work of art is sufficiently old it will have passed into the public domain (q.v. that article for the details of what "sufficiently old" means). As for works of art that actually are copyrighted, the same goes as for any other image — the copyright holder has to license them for use, and then on the image description page you need to state this license. As for your other question, displaying a photo of a sculpture or building doesn't violate the "copyright" of that sculpture or building. (Warning, entirely irrelevant fact: in North Korea if you take a picture of a statue it has to be from the front and include the entire body in the frame). If you took the photo you can choose to license it as you see fit. Are there any particular scenarios you have in mind that prompted you to ask the question? If you give the details someone may be able to offer better advice. Thanks. — Trilobite (Talk) 02:54, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
We're generally not interested in images of copyrighted works of visual art. If the copyright holder has decided to release those copyrighted works under a free license, then you'd tag the image with the tag for that license. Otherwise, we don't want it. anthony (see warning) 13:49, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Articles in need of formatting

User:Guanabot has made some automated fixes recently that brought some formatting issues to my attention, most of which were due to some old automated-conversion imports back in February 2002. The articles in question are the "Communications in...", "Politics of...", "Geography of..." sort. I don't know how many of these there are, but the old versions all suffer from some poor formatting. If anyone could pitch in to help reformat these, that'd be splendid. For examples of how I think they should be formatted: [9], [10], [11], [12]. Most of these could use some additional wikification, i.e. links on km and m, headings stating what the article is about, more correct degree/min/sec on the geographical coordinates, etc. I've been following in the trail of Guanabot, to make these articles easier to find. -- Wapcaplet 19:12, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

P.S. - See also Transportation by country. -- Wapcaplet 19:28, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not to mention updating with more recent data. -- User:Docu

I've continued to format and wikify these, finding more small things in need of improvement along the way. Currently I'm concentrating on the "Geography by..." articles. In those, "sq km" should become "km²" with a wikilink to square kilometre. "m" and "nm" should become wikilinks. There are probably a dozen other recurring phrases that could become wikilinks, but I haven't bothered with them. I've added Category:Geography by country to those I find without it. My changes haven't been completely consistent from article to article, but if you want to see what I'm doing, look at my contribs. Help on this would be greatly appreciated :-) -- Wapcaplet 02:07, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Military equipment naming convention

Is there currently any convention on which of the many names of various bits of military equipment to use?

For instance we currently have a page on 88mm gun referring to the family of models of that cailbre used by Germany in World War II. However, Anti-aircraft lists the same things as [[8.8 cm Flak 18]].

Is there or should there be a policy on which of various alternative names to use and help stop different contributors missing one anothers' work with slightly different names?

Just £0.02.

Good question. I noticed that anomaly and would be interested in clearing it up. The convention today is certainly to use mm rather than cm. For example, see 30 mm (note the recommended space between the digits and the unit symbol). There are examples of people at the time talking about 'eighty eights'. It is possible that cm values were valid in some way in the past. It might even be that both terms were in parallel use. A brief Google frequency search does not have a persuasive majority for either. I use mm by default unless there is a strong case for cm. Bobblewik  (talk) 10:55, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I added a redirect to the current article title. Rmhermen 13:06, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
Redirects are always the best way to stop "missing one anothers' work". If you know of an alternative name for a weapon (or any article subject), create the redirects immediately. That way if someone links to an alternative name, the resulting link will be blue, linking to the existing article via redirect, and not red, begging for a new article to be written. Catherine | talk 15:52, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Summarised sections

This section was last removed on September 19. The links below indicate the page to which the relevant discussion has been moved. They are removed every few days. Discussions that have not moved (such as announcements of new policy) can be removed completely, or summarised in this section. Bug reports and feature requests are replaced with a reminder that MediaZilla: should be used for these. If you want discussions to last more than a few days, start them elsewhere and just link to them here. Questions can be moved to the user talk page of the person who asked them without a link from this section. An example format for this section is
*Section header as it was before removal --> [[title of page the related discussion is on or has moved to]].

Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump/Archive_AU&oldid=1180406429"